


Snowbound

by evakuality



Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Except it's not really enemies to lovers it's more dumbasses to lovers, Fluff, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Some angsty bits, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24267016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evakuality/pseuds/evakuality
Summary: The thing about Matteo is that he shines and stings in David’s life in equal measure.aka, the one where I got a tumblr prompt about them being stuck in a snow storm and who am I to pass over a chance to write a good 'snowed in together' trope?
Relationships: Matteo Florenzi/David (Druck)
Comments: 158
Kudos: 228





	1. Chapter 1

It’s quiet as David presses his forehead to the cool panes of the glass and stares outside. That’s something for which he’s genuinely grateful because it means he can try to get his racing thoughts into some semblance of order before he has to play nice for several days. He’s had major reservations about this trip ever since Abdi first suggested it when he was five beers into a great night and everything had seemed equally hilarious, exciting and easily achieved. To Abdi anyway. None of those things is even remotely true, definitely weren’t true at the time, and yet they had made it work in the end. Sort of. 

David’s on a train in charge of an entire large bag filled with food and alcohol while most of the others are going to follow later in a car. Which they could technically have brought the food in, but into which they apparently weren’t able to fit it considering the mountains of other important stuff they were trailing. Like skis, a snowboard or two and lots of warm clothes. Make ‘having no room for the food’ point one on the list of reasons why this trip was a badly organised, blatantly stupid idea. 

David sighs as he drags his eyes back inside the carriage and looks around him. Looks at Matteo, who’s dozing in the corner of the seat opposite David. _That’s_ the biggest problem, and that’s why David had reservations about this from the start. Not that anyone listened to him. That’s point two on the long list of why this was not a good idea. Though in terms of how large it loomed in the list of ‘reasons why David should not do this’ it’s right up there, and probably should have its own points track and not just ending up lumped in with all the other much less important reasons. 

The thing about Matteo is that he shines and stings in David’s life in equal measure.

The thing with them has always baffled everyone around them. Fuck, half the time it baffles David. There was a small moment in time when he’d thought they were connecting. Back when he was newly arrived from the raw, rough experience at his old school and Matteo had smiled at him a few times, David had thought he might even have made a friend. Someone he could share thoughts with, relaxing into the new sensation of smoking weed and rambling about everything and nothing for hours. 

But he was swiftly disillusioned of that idea when Matteo had retreated into himself as early as the next day, his smiles coming less often over the next week, clipped and cut off and eventually fading to nothingness alongside short, rough dismissals of any attempt to connect again. That it was something to do with David was obvious when Matteo was with his friends. With them, he’d spark into life, laughing, pushing, teasing. He had the energy he’d had on that one glittering evening they’d spent together. So watching Matteo with those others, fresh from the wounds inflicted at his old school, David had run and hidden. From that moment he was careful to stay as far from Matteo as he could get, unwilling to suffer anymore at the hands of people who flash hot and cold and always have some sort of verbal weapon hidden under the cover of their friendliness when it appears.

Huffing again, David turns back to look out the window. Thinking about Matteo just serves to raise his blood pressure, sending both an aching thought about what might have been if Matteo hadn’t been such an ass and a stabbing anger at how blasé he seems to be about the whole thing now that they’re thrown together so often through chance. Well, chance and a group of people who don’t let anyone stay distant once they’ve decided they want to be friends. Blocking out the sight of Matteo sitting there in front of David is the best way to keep his carefully cultivated calm. Once they’re all at the cabin with the boys it should be fine. It’s never quite as hard to be polite when it’s not just the two of them. So it’s something of a blessing that Matteo is asleep and David isn’t forced to make awkward small talk with him.

Instead he can focus on the beauty of the world outside his window. Darkness is drawing in around the train and with it come some small flurries of snow. They dance, fidgeting spinners through the air as the train rattles onwards through the landscape, beautiful and fragile. Watching them, David lets himself drift, following their forms with his eyes and his heart and leaving his own troubles slumbering on the seat opposite. There’ll be time enough to worry about all that once they get to their destination.

“How are we supposed to get to the cabin?” Matteo asks, his voice clipped, weariness seeping in even though he’s been asleep for the last hour at least.

David kicks at the heavy bag by his feet, finding it impossible to move and wondering glumly how they’re going to move it at all, let alone get it to the cabin. 

“David?” Matteo says, irritation slipping into his voice, and David’s gaze snaps up to Matteo’s. The exhaustion is actually easy to read even in the shadowy light in front of the station, or maybe it’s so easy to see because of the way it throws all the planes and angles of Matteo’s face into relief and plays up all the hidden shadows reflected on it. Dark smudges are visible under his eyes and his body is slumped against the stone wall in a way that looks more like genuine need for support than affectation. David shrugs.

“Dunno,” he murmurs. “Uber?”

Matteo’s lips purse as if the idea is distasteful, but he too looks down at the bag stuffed full of food and seems to recognise the inevitability. He sighs and pulls out his phone. Within moments he nods and looks over at David again.

“It’s on its way,” he says. “We should get this stuff out the front I suppose.”

David nods, relieved to have something to do other than stand around making this awkward chat with Matteo in the dim lighting that calls back to the hallway in which they’d first talked. The hallway and conversation in which David had first thought he might manage to belong in the new school that was so terrifying after everything he’d been through.

Between them, they manage to perch their personal bags over their shoulders and drag the food bag through the brightly lit entrance hall and out to the cracked and broken pavement out the front. They stand together, panting breaths sending puffs of misty air out into the deepening dusk as the day slips even closer into night. The snow is falling faster now, no longer dancing but now coming down as if with purpose. David shivers as he looks at the flakes, rushing towards their inevitable soggy end now rather than twisting and dancing as if on spirited legs. The wind is cutting through the hoodie he’s wearing, whistling in under the open edges of his jacket and making him shudder with the cold. 

Beside him, Matteo has lit up a smoke of some sort, and David doesn’t want to know what type of smoke it might be. It’s enough that it smells terrible, the smoke acrid in the gusts of wind whipping around them, but that somehow Matteo makes it look good. His eyes when he blows the smoke out flicker closed, his head tips back and David is drawn to the long length of his throat exposed by the movement. Which is almost as infuriating as the revolting smell.

“How long before it gets here?” David asks, trying to shake off the sudden flush of heat that Matteo’s smoking has dragged into his own body, swamping it and masking the chill of the night.

That might have been a mistake as Matteo looks over at him, the smudges under his eye almost invisible now and his eyes a deep reflective blue in the artificial lights as his hair flops down over his face. It’s so reminiscent of their first discussion under harsh lights outside a school room, that David has to suck in a breath and drop his own eyes to the ground, focusing instead on the scuffed shoes he’s chosen to wear.

“It’s about five minutes away,” Matteo says, and David nods morosely. Five minutes. Might as well be an eternity.

“Why can’t either of us drive?” David asks, not really intending to be heard but Matteo huffs out a tiny laugh drawing David’s eyes right back up to his face.

“Because we’re lazy fucks,” he says, his eyes glinting as he takes another drag on the smoke between his fingers, then offers it to David.

The smell crashes over him again, and he wrinkles his nose. Shakes his head. There’s a flicker of something on Matteo’s face, his eyes shutter for a brief moment before he nods and takes another drag himself. The hint of a smile is gone, and when Matteo turns his back to the wall and looks up at the sky David knows the conversation is done.

This always happens. There’s some small start at camaraderie or conversation, but then it shuts down almost as soon as it begins, leaving David ill at ease, body thrumming from a desire he can’t explain and head stuffed full of contradictory thoughts. Matteo is at once enthralling and exasperating, never opening up enough to let David see inside. As if that one long ago conversation was all David was ever to be allowed to see and to know and everything else is cut off before it can even begin. It stabs at him again that Matteo isn’t like this with anyone else. With them he’s charming and open, teasing and sarcastic, alive in a way that David is never allowed to see if they’re ever alone in this way. Not that David wants to be allowed inside. He just wishes he knew what the hell he’d done to make Matteo this different around him.

There was part of him, back then, that had wondered if Matteo was some sort of asshole who’d worked out David’s secret from that evening they’d shared and rejected him because of that. Back then, it was all rough and raw and cut him to the bone whenever he ran up against the prejudices of others. It’s not as bad now, not when he’s lived long enough in the world to feel more secure in his own skin. He’s much less likely to give in to the desire to run and to hide. Still. The lingering feelings from those days colour every interaction with Matteo and it always ends like this. Stilted conversations that go nowhere and a Matteo who’s closed off and shut down.

Before he can let his thoughts darken any more, headlights flash around the corner and a small boxy car slides up next to them. Matteo’s bending to look into the window, and laughing at something the driver has said, all hints of his earlier tiredness dissipating as he turns to grab their bags and fling them into the car’s backseat. The contrast is so stark that David can’t help the pain that lances through him as he climbs into the back seat next to the pile of bags. 

It only takes about ten minutes to get to the cabin, but in that time the snow becomes heavier until it’s almost impossible to see as they make their way through the night, headlights barely making any headway against the thickening shroud as it falls. The driver has stopped cracking jokes and started squinting through the windscreen, his hands gripped tightly on the steering wheel and his face a mask of concentration. Matteo has subsided too, his exhaustion obvious in the way he lets himself flop back against the headrest. It all leaves David to the joys of his own thoughts, which are not particularly peaceful.

Sighing in relief as they arrive, he’s able to shake off the approaching melancholy and get their belongings safely stored into the cabin. David looks around him as they stand just inside the entrance. It looks pleasant enough, this cabin they’ve rented, with a large open plan kitchen taking up most of the space at one end of the long room, and a table breaking the space between it and the living area which is filled with plump couches and overstuffed chairs. Thankfully, there’s a wall heater as well as the fire place with wood neatly stacked inside. It’s so cold in the unheated room that David is shivering again, and he knows there’s no way that fire will generate any heat any time soon.

Matteo seems to have had a similar thought, because he strides over to the heater and pushes a few buttons.

“Putting that on the highest it will go,” he says as he turns back to the luggage they’ve stacked just inside the front door and starts pulling out the various foodstuffs they’ve brought with them.

Part of David wants to argue, to push back against the assumption that Matteo gets to be in charge and making all those sorts of decisions. But a bigger part of him knows that’s unreasonable and knows that if he’d been the one to turn it on he’d have done exactly the same thing, so he just hums an affirmation and bends to help Matteo with the food. They work in near silence, with the occasional query about where to store certain foods the only discussion.

David wouldn’t call it uncomfortable exactly, but he can tell just how tired Matteo is and just how much he wants to be away from David. The chilly tension from the station remains with them, and David hopes like hell that the rest of the boys aren’t too far away. He needs their cheerful exuberance to make it through this trip with any sort of enjoyment. This frosty, barely-there communication Matteo has going on is putting a huge dampener on David’s experience of this time.

The chill in the air wears off as they work, pushed away both by the heater’s warmth and the effort of heaving things around, but the chill between the two of them lingers. David wistfully hopes that by the time they’re done their company will have arrived. He’s not sure how much longer he can endure this silence and tension once he has nothing to focus on and they’re forced into some weird semblance of intimacy.

They’re just about finished, storing the last few beers into the suitably large fridge, when Matteo’s phone pings loudly. He shoves the beers he’s holding deeper into the fridge and by the time he’s dragged the phone out of his pocket it has sounded twice more.

Matteo’s face flickers as he reads the messages and his lips crease into an angry line.

“Fuck,” he says softly, so quietly that David is sure he wasn’t supposed to hear, but he can’t help the inquisitive hum he makes.

Matteo’s eyes snap up to him as if he’s just realised David is still here with him.

“The boys aren’t coming,” he says, his face flushing as he drops his gaze away from David’s. There’s resignation and irritation in his voice and a scowl on his face. David winces. That’s one possibility he hadn’t even considered, too consumed by the need for the rest of the boys and their enlivening presence perhaps.

“What? Why?”

“Snow storm, apparently. They can’t get through. Stuck at some little hotel somewhere on the road.”

That’s just great, David thinks viciously. The boys were supposed to be his buffer. They were supposed to make this thing something like fun. Instead he’s stuck here with someone who clearly finds his company less than ideal. Someone who David himself finds difficult to get through to, and with whom he has a complicated history. Worse, the boys have all the equipment with them, so there’s no chance even for skiing or snowboarding to get him away from the supremely awkward moments he can already sense looming in his future.

He flings the door open and looks outside. Indeed, the snow has piled up so there’s about a foot drifted against the cabin already. It’s not stopping anytime soon, either, as the flakes are falling so steadily now that it’s impossible to make out one from another. Any hope of the boys getting through to rescue David stutters to a halt, lost in the chilled white wall piling up in front of him. 

Beside him, Matteo huffs his own irritation.

“Fuck,” he says again, louder this time.

David has to agree with that sentiment as he closes the door, blocking out the unwelcome sight of the silent, muffled white world building its armour against them. Fuck, indeed.


	2. Chapter 2

Watching as David closes the door on the suffocating white world outside and then leans forward to rest his head against it, Matteo grimaces. Thankfully, David’s back is to him so the face he makes won’t be seen and Matteo can allow himself this one tiny expression of his stress. Because there’s nothing more terrifying right now than being stuck here in this cabin with David bloody Schreibner. 

_ Alone _ with him. With David bloody Schreibner.

Meaning that there’s nothing between them but their own issues, issues that seem to have stuck them in some bizarre world where they can barely be civil to each other without it ending in a chilled politeness that’s somehow worse than outright hostility.

If you’d asked Matteo about this trip back when Abdi had suggested it, and Carlos had picked it up and run with it like the excited puppy he is, he’d have told you it was a really fucking stupid idea. In fact, he  _ did _ say it out loud and often to everyone who would listen. Which was exactly none of his stupid asshole friends. In fact, the only one who seemed to be on the same page about the whole thing was David, as ironic as  _ that _ is when you think about it. The problem, as it always has been, was that none of the boys were inclined to listen to what Matteo wanted when they had fixated on doing something they wanted to do, and so the inevitable result of that is that he’s in this situation now.

He might not have predicted exactly this happening (in none of his worst, wildest nightmares did he ever imagine being literally stuck in the same space as David, just the two of them, in a parody of intimacy), and yet Matteo had always been worried that something might go wrong. That somehow just happens when David is involved. To be fair, Jonas had orchestrated the whole process of renting the cabin, assigning preparatory jobs to everyone, making sure they all knew what they were doing, and he’d done it well. The planning can’t really be faulted. It’s just that Matteo had known somewhere deep in the pit of his gut just how bad an idea it had been to include him and David in any sort of overnight trip together. And the events of the last hour or so had proven him blisteringly correct even before the mess of the boys not making it.

Spending time together is just so damn  _ awkward. _ It always has been. Particularly if they ever end up somewhere just the two of them. Spending time together today, filled with aborted attempts at conversation and a tension that’s near unbearable, had just cemented how bad an idea it is. If the several strained meetings over the years hadn’t been enough to really drum that idea home, this afternoon had surely been an excellent illustration as to why they should never, ever be left all alone together for longer than a few minutes.

So  _ of course _ here Matteo is, trapped inside a muffled and claustrophobic universe consisting of one small cabin and the two of them. It’s the very worst possible outcome of all the potentials that had swum around in his head when he protested about this trip. Anxiety flashes in Matteo’s stomach. He groans, hoping that David mistakes it for annoyance at the situation and not for the very real burst of a panic Matteo might just be feeling at the idea of the night they have to endure… and very possibly the several days to come if the storm doesn’t abate.

Thinking it might be a good idea to at least try to dispel the usual fug that oppresses them when they’re together, Matteo clears his throat. At the sound, David pushes back from the door and turns to look back towards Matteo, his face set in a mask of politeness, the strain obvious around the corners of his eyes. The grim lines of his face have the usual effect of dampening any idea Matteo might have of trying to start up an actually decent conversation. So he swallows the inane words he was about to say, then drags his gaze away from David’s as he tries to swallow down the rising panic he’s feeling. 

He looks around in frustration, tries to think what else they can do to at least make this time bearable. His breath is starting to catch when he breathes in, his heart rate is picking up unpleasantly, and Matteo knows he’s getting close to stressing himself out, close to falling into one of the panicked moments that would sometimes swamp him when he was younger. It’s been a long time since he’d felt that impending loss of control, which shows just how stupid this whole idea was. He’d been right to be concerned about how this might go. Matteo feels a slight stab of vindication at the thought, but it’s not enough to push away the stress.

He closes his eyes, takes a few breaths in the way he’s been taught, lets his breath regulate his heart rate. It works to the extent that Matteo feels himself pulling back from the brink, just enough to stave it all off, and sighs in relief. Hoping to keep it all at bay, Matteo thinks about the one thing that he can always do to make himself settle. There’s really no other option, and given the time and the way his stomach makes itself known as soon as he has the thought, it’s probably necessary anyway.

“You want some dinner?” Matteo asks, turning to David with as bright a smile as he can muster, hoping his voice doesn’t wobble too much. He thinks the timing between when he closed his eyes and when he asked the questions was speedy enough that David shouldn’t have realised what was going on, if he can just keep his damn body under control long enough to hide the problem as deep inside as he can. 

Thankfully, when he chances a glance in David’s direction, he sees a small twist of his lips and a nod. He must have got away with it, then. There’s resignation in David’s eyes. As if he, too, recognises that they need to do something to bridge the cavern between them. As if he too knows they can’t keep this distant thing up, not when it’s just them for the foreseeable future.

Matteo’s back is still stiff with the tension that’s been thrumming in him ever since he ended up on that train sitting opposite David, and his hands shake almost imperceptibly when he reaches towards the fridge. He pulls open the door harder than he’d intended to in order to stave off some of the awkward feelings that are trying to crawl up into his throat, and in hopes that it will mask the tremble in his fingers. It crashes back against the counter, the sound so loud in the silence that he jumps. He needs to get a grip, Matteo thinks; there’s no way he’s going to manage this if he keeps jumping at shadows.

He laughs, a little bitterly, when he turns to look inside the fridge and sees the array of foodstuffs inside. There are rows and rows of beers and several energy drinks, neatly lined up across an entire shelf. There’s some cheese, pickles, various other condiments, and one sad packet of ham on another shelf and very little else. Somehow the disproportionate amount of alcohol and energy drinks hadn’t registered with Matteo when they were stowing the food away, but he should have known what would happen when Carlos and Abdi had been assigned the job of getting the food.

He knows at least that there’s a lot of bread as well, and he can do something with that, but there’s not much for him to work with in terms of making actual meals. No hope of making his favourite pasta. In resignation, Matteo drags the cheese and ham out of the fridge and grabs a loaf of bread that’s sitting on the counter nearby. It’s going to have to be sandwiches until he can figure out something better.

“Can I help?” David asks quietly, startling Matteo as he moves in beside him, a waft of his cologne sweeping in and stealing Matteo's breath for an entirely different reason. Which… fuck it. That sucks in a whole new way; he’d thought he’d managed to get some sort of handle on the stupid feelings that have followed him from their teenage years but they’re apparently just waiting to pop out again in the worst possible place.

Pushing the thought away, Matteo looks over the things he has and shrugs. There’s something about the way it feels to have David so close beside him that makes him feel jittery and uncomfortable even when the scent of the cologne dispels. His body is thrumming with a new tension, one which Matteo just can’t let himself give into when everything is so messed up and he can’t escape. So he shifts away slightly and notes the small stiffening of David's spine as he does so. “Get the pickles from the fridge maybe?” he says eventually, once he’s sure his voice won’t give him away.

David chews on his lip as he nods, making him look nervous. A nervous David is something Matteo can't really let himself think about either, but he can’t really help himself. Out of the side of his eye, Matteo watches as David pulls not just the pickles out but also every other bottle and jar he can see. Something bittersweet pulls in Matteo’s chest at the memory of a day when he himself had done the same and David had gone along with every terrible suggestion. The result was so awful that Matteo can still taste the marshmallow and cream mixing with the pickle to become something truly horrific. He can also feel the same giddy joy he’d felt back then as they’d got to know each other, remembered warmth setting butterflies loose in his belly and making heat pile up in his cheeks as they’d taken bites of the food together.

He wonders if David knows what he’s doing, if this is some sort of deliberate callback to that day, when everything seemed effortless and it was all possibility. Because if it’s not, the contrast between this stilted, awkward dinner and the playful fun of that day is so stark as to be almost comical. If it is a callback it’s almost worse. What could David be playing at, trying to take them back to the only moment in time when they didn’t have whatever this thing is sitting between them?

Matteo turns so he’s leaning back against the counter and watching David openly now. There’s a small flush on David’s cheeks, which can’t be attributed to heat, since the fire hasn’t been lit yet, and the wall heater isn’t making a huge difference to the chill of the air. It’s been a long time since Matteo let himself truly look at David; it’s been too painful for too long thinking about all the ‘maybes’ that had swirled around him. So it’s something of a shock to really appreciate the way David’s face has honed into that of a man in the years since they met. 

His cheekbones are stronger, drawn into relief, perhaps even more today by the way his lips are twisted in concentration as he carefully lines his choices up along the counter next to the bread Matteo has been slicing. There’s something really attractive about the way his hair curls on his head, longer now than it had been by the time they left school, and playing up the definition in his face even more. David’s mouth curves upwards into a smile, the movement drawing Matteo’s eyes right to the piercing that suddenly glints in the light shining overhead.

“You done looking?” David asks, his voice the warmest it’s been since they started on their travels today, and he glances sideways at Matteo making him blush as if caught in wrong doing. He looks like he’s teasing, like they could actually relax and be friendly.

“I was just thinking about the last time we made sandwiches like this,” Matteo says instead of admitting that he  _ has _ been admiring the way David looks. He’s taken aback by his own honesty, but David’s smile has loosened something hard and painful in his chest and he feels like he can be a little more real. They’re stuck together for some indeterminate time, after all, so making common ground seems like it’s going to be the best way to deal with the situation they’ve found themselves in.

David’s face goes through such a complicated series of expressions that veer through such a variety of unhappy emotions that it makes Matteo's heart drop. He’s never been able to figure out what to say to make David relax; seems to get it wrong more often than not. But where David's expression finally lands is something that looks nostalgic. It’s not exactly happy, but there’s something there that suggests kinship and shared memory. That’s a start. 

“Those were dreadful,” David says with a small laugh. Matteo is relieved that he’s decided to keep it light; there is a danger in delving deeper into those painful could-have-beens. Whatever they share is so fragile, and this enforced time together so mixed up and confusing, that a single wrong move could ruin whatever they might be able to salvage out of this.

“They were masterpieces,” Matteo insists, letting his own amusement show on his face and leans into the teasing vibe they seem to be attempting. David glances at him, his lips quirking even further into that smile.

“They really weren’t.”

“Pity we don’t have any cream or marshmallows,” Matteo says, carefully placing slices of cheese onto the bread he’s laid out. “I could have recreated them and proven it to you.”

David shakes his head as he rolls his eyes and follows the cheese up with some ham and then reaches for the pickles. He says nothing, but the tension that had sat so heavy over his body has dissipated. They finish making the sandwiches with no further incident, not even when Matteo offers to place gummy bears instead of the cream in sugary homage to the old sandwiches and David recoils in horror at the idea.

Matteo’s just rummaging under the counter in hopes of finding a sandwich press to toast their creations, when he hears his phone pinging. He knocks his head against the counter as he tries to stand up in time to retrieve it, because there’s one thing he really doesn’t want David to see if he can help it. Not when he remembers one small piece of nostalgia he’s been carrying with him for all these years and just how obvious it is when his phone pings.

“Am I your lock screen?” David’s voice is puzzled as Matteo snatches his phone from under his nose and shuts down its incriminating picture.

“No!”

“No but that’s my art,” David insists, pointing at the screen which had so recently been displaying one of his old cartoon vampire pictures.

“You weren’t supposed to see that. And besides, it’s not you; it’s your art,” Matteo mumbles, his cheeks aflame. “I just liked it.”

David’s face has paled a little, and he stills as he looks at Matteo as if he’s only just seeing him for the first time. All the camaraderie from the last half hour has gone, fleeing just like it had in the station earlier, and Matteo kicks himself for not changing the old picture he’s been using for so long that he’d almost forgotten what it was. That was always certain to spook David if he saw it; after everything that’s passed under the bridge between them it must seem very strange. 

Things like this always get in the way and prove that it’s Matteo’s own fault that he just can’t seem to make the connection he’d still really love to share with David. Matteo always does something to spoil any moments they manage to steal together. It’s almost like it’s inevitable that they’re not destined to get along. Like that one long ago conversation is the peak of their friendship, and Matteo regrets yet again the fact that they’re now stuck here together with no way out. No matter what he tries, no matter how much they seem to relax, he always messes it up.

They stare at each other for a long moment, Matteo’s face heated and his hands shaking again as he stuffs the phone back into his pocket without even bothering to find out what the message was. Then David sucks in a breath, scoops up his sandwich, turns on his heel and walks out of the room and Matteo lets out his breath in a frustrated huff. 

There was a time, back when David was new at school and Matteo had been shut inside his own head and closed off from the world most of the time, when the idea of spending time with David would have been amazing. Back then, Matteo had been drawn to the other boy in a way he’s seldom been before or since. Unfortunately, back then, David had slipped away after the best conversation Matteo could ever remember having, the one he’d felt a pull of nostalgia about just a few moments ago. The one that still holds a certain power over him and his memories. 

That day, David had disappeared like smoke leaving most of a terrible sandwich on the counter, and Matteo’s fragile sense of worth had been left shattered in his wake. Even more unfortunately, that rejection had coincided with Matteo being swamped by one of the most overwhelming mental fogs he could remember. 

It has taken many years, and a lot of work with some very patient professionals, for Matteo to learn better ways to manage the feelings that would attack him and drag him down into the abyss of his own mind when those fogs attacked. So part of Matteo knows that the way he’d attempt to mute his feelings was part of the issue that had tripped up whatever had been happening with David, that his own problems and the way he dealt (or to be more real, didn’t deal) with them was partly to blame for the break down of the single most promising friendship he’d found to that point. 

But that’s part of today’s problem. 

Whenever the two of them are together these days, Matteo can sense the way that David withholds his true self. He’s bright and amazing, shining like a star whenever he’s with the other boys. But with Matteo he’s clipped and quiet, rebuffing any offers of friendship after a few moments of seeming connection. And every time that happens, Matteo can see something in his face that speaks of his own unhappiness with how things are. There’s something about the set of David’s mouth that says he wishes things were different too, but that he too has no idea how to deal with everything that’s come before. 

Watching it happen again today, first at the station and now here in this kitchen, Matteo is reminded again of his own failures and of the way he’d managed to alienate this boy who’d meant so much for such a shining moment in time. Manages to keep alienating him. Sighing, he places his own sandwich on a plate and sits down at the table to eat it. His throat is so clogged with memory and regret that he can barely force it down. He hopes that wherever he is, David is faring better with his. 

He also hopes that they can manage to survive this enforced confinement, because right now they’re not doing a terribly great job of it. As if to mock him with the hopelessness of finding a way out, the wind picks up outside, and a glance at the windows shows unrelenting white as the snow is forced against it, blocking out even a hint of the night surrounding them. As a metaphor for what’s going on here, ‘impenetrable and inescapable storm’ seems to be too horribly apt.


	3. Chapter 3

The world is entirely white when David blinks into awareness, and it takes a few disorientated moments for him to realise he forgot to draw the curtains last night and that the snow is piled high enough against the window that much of it is opaque. On a second look, David sees that there are frost crystals on the inside of the window, adding to the impression. The sun is out, and the resulting glare, refracted through those glittering ice patterns, is blinding. David squints against the harsh brightness of the light, groaning as the memories from the night before thrust their way into his consciousness. He throws one hand over his eyes and tries to shut everything out; if only he could shut out his own feelings as effectively as the snow is shutting out the world. 

It doesn’t work. He sees his own roughly-drawn picture on Matteo’s lock screen flash in his mind over and over again. The image repeats along with the look on Matteo’s face as he shoved his phone as deep into his pocket as he could. It’s … it was just a little confronting, that’s all. To see actual proof in front of his eyes that Matteo thinks somewhat positively about something to do with David. To see how exposed and embarrassed it had made Matteo had twisted something deep and primal in David’s gut as he’d been forced in a few blinding seconds to rethink their entire acquaintance.

David sighs. And of course, like an asshole, he’d run away because of it. Just the way he had so many times when he was younger, back when it seemed important to protect himself from the world by shutting that world out. Because something in the way Matteo had blushed when he’d hidden the phone had called to something in David. 

Worse, David is finding it very hard to reconcile the closed off Matteo in his head with the one who’d reacted that way when David had seen his lockscreen. For one brief moment he’d faced down a very vulnerable-looking Matteo, and that idea had shaken David to his core. Because a vulnerable Matteo is one who could potentially worm his way inside David’s defences. Or further inside than he already is. Because the Matteo of last night hadn’t seemed like an asshole, not the way David has always built him up in his head. And the Matteo of last night had inadvertently given away that he didn’t entirely hate David, might in fact not hate him at all if the look in his eyes was anything to go by.

Last night’s Matteo is one David could potentially enjoy spending time with. And that thought was so fucking scary he’d had to run away. Had to hide. He groans again and buries himself in the covers of the bed. Maybe if he doesn’t get up he won’t have to face the consequences of any of this new knowledge. Maybe if he stays here he can just pretend he didn’t see what he saw.

A clattering thunder rattles the door, and David sits bolt upright, his heart pounding. In all the self-examination he’d clearly missed the sound of Matteo approaching. He’s losing his touch, he thinks ruefully as he tries to get his breathing back under control.

“David?” Matteo calls through the door. “Are you awake?”

“I am now,” he grumbles, pushing the covers aside, thumping his feet to the floor hoping to express his irritation loud enough for Matteo to hear, and stumbling his way across to pull the door open.

“Sorry.” Matteo shrugs, not looking all that concerned that he’s just scared David half to death. “But I just cooked some breakfast.” He grins, the smile lighting his face and making it look boyish in a way David doesn’t get to see close up like this. Matteo waves his hand back towards the main room. “If you can call making toast ‘cooking’ anyway.”

David can’t do anything more than gape at Matteo. He’s acting like last night never happened at all, or at least like David never fled like the terrified idiot he really is. It’s almost disorientating how casually Matteo is acting this morning, and David feels wrong-footed and disorientated, like he’s on some sort of weird shifting ground that he doesn’t know how to deal with.

Matteo turns to walk away, looking back when he realises David isn’t following. There’s a quizzical look on his face as if he doesn’t understand why David hasn’t followed along. “You coming?” There’s something that almost looks like bravado in his eyes, but he turns away and heads through the door so fast that David's almost sure he imagined it. Blinking, still not really understanding this newly relaxed and friendly Matteo, David carefully pulls a hoodie on over his t-shirt and trails Matteo out into the main room. 

It’s warm. That’s the first thing David notices when he steps inside. The fire’s crackling in the hearth, having clearly been lit some time earlier, and there’s a little rack of cooked toast on the table alongside a bowl with some tomatoes that Matteo _has_ clearly cooked. There’s also a plate with some butter and jam, and some thick, untoasted bread. Matteo has very obviously been up for a while and he has equally obviously put some effort into this breakfast.

“What’s all this for?” David asks as he drops into a chair near the fire, sighing as the warmth soaks into his back and he reaches out to pluck one of the toast slices out of the rack.

There’s a spot of colour on Matteo’s cheeks even as he tries for what is clearly supposed to be a casual shrug as he sits down opposite David. 

“I just figured we’re stuck together at least for a few days. It seems like we should just … I don’t know. Suck it up and try to be decent to each other.” His lips quirk up into a smile. It’s a little devastating, the way it lightens his whole face and makes his eyes shine. All the unwelcome thoughts from earlier this morning swarm back into David's mind and he has to shake his head to get rid of them. Matteo obviously mistakes the shake because his smile drops momentarily before slipping back on brighter than ever as he adds, “I thought a little bribery might make it all a bit easier.”

He’s trying, David can see that. Outwardly he’s relaxed, his smile still in place and he’s casually piling tomatoes onto his plate and grabbing some toast, but underneath there’s a thread of tension and his smile wavers when he isn’t focused. Normally when things get like this they both close off, which they did as recently as yesterday. But Matteo is right; they’re stuck here so that’s not really a good option. It’s only fair that David meets him halfway, so he smiles too and tilts his head to the side as if examining Matteo.

“Bribery, huh?”

Matteo glances over at him, his eyes warm in the glow of the fire. David’s tummy swoops and he rolls his eyes at himself. Of course the second Matteo becomes even the slightest bit friendly is the moment David decides to fall headfirst back into his old crush. Part of him wants to do his usual, wants to retreat back into his room and avoid everything this is dragging out into the painful glare of the light. But he forces himself to stay put. He reminds himself of the important part: they’re here for the time being and they have to rely on each other at least to an extent. 

“Is it working?” Matteo asks.

David can feel the stupid grin that’s trying to break out on his own face, and forces it away by focusing on carefully spreading the jam onto his toast. Matteo’s being friendly, and that friendliness is doing things to David’s poise, but there’s still that awkward history between them and he has to remind himself that while they’re trying to be friendly, this is a silk-fine tightrope they’re walking so he has to be careful. There’s too much history between them for a headlong dive into his feelings to be a good idea. Still. It’s impossible not to let himself tease a little, wanting to draw that cheeky smile back onto Matteo’s face.

“I’ll tell you later. Might take a few more tomatoes.”

“Sorry that’s all I have, used all the ones we brought.”

“Oh. Well then, I’m afraid in that case I’m unbribable.”

David takes an ostentatious bite of his toast, exaggerating the movement and raising his eyebrows and defying Matteo to say something else.

Matteo laughs. The sound is loud, boisterous, and it startles David. He’s not entirely sure when he’s ever heard that laugh quite like that before. Usually when David’s around, Matteo keeps himself restrained, and his laughs are more like soft chuckles. Small and fleeting, like something could break them with one poke. This one isn’t stifled before it even has a chance to begin, though, and David can’t help but join in. Soon they’re giggling, snorts escaping each of them as they try to regain whatever poise they might have started with.

“I have a stash of Prinzen rolle cremys in my bag,” Matteo says eventually, once they’ve both wound down. His eyes are alight, his body the most relaxed David can ever remember seeing it, and there’s something very charming about it. Something David almost thinks he might be able to let himself give into, as if the shared moment of laughter had broken through some of the years of distance and chilly politeness. As if, somehow and somewhere, they might be able to salvage something out of this trip after all. “If you play nice I might bribe you with one of those.”

“Only one?”

The look Matteo gives him is filled with exasperation and he kicks out with his foot, connecting with David’s ankle in a way that’s clearly supposed to be annoying but which just sends a warm flush right through David’s body. It’s all there again, those long-held feelings that keep creeping up against David’s better judgement. Matteo holds his gaze and something shifts imperceptibly in the depths of his eyes. David swallows, the sound loud in the sudden silence of the room. It’s awkward, but not the way David has almost become used to. 

Matteo blushes, the colour rising slowly into his cheeks as the moment lengthens. David has to pull his own gaze away before he gives away some embarrassing hint of the things he’s been feeling. There’s something small and sad in Matteo's smile just as David's eyes drop. It’s enough to send a stab of guilt through David alongside something that wants to prolong this but is too scared to try. To cover, and to push away the unwelcome thoughts, David nods at the door leading outside.

“Do you think we should clear off some of the snow?” he asks. He doesn’t really want to, would far prefer to sit inside in the warmth and huddle by the fire. But he knows if they don’t clear the snow from the door they could end up with a worse problem once they can leave safely. He also knows that having something to do is more likely to help him avoid all the things he’s finding he’s not yet ready to face.

Matteo grimaces, but it’s not like the ones David is used to where it’s obviously a reaction to David himself. It’s very clear that this one is directed at the thought of clearing snow. His mouth twists and his nose crinkles in obvious distaste.

“Yeah,” he agrees quietly. “We really should I guess.”

Neither of them makes a move though, too content just sitting here sharing breakfast together, fighting over the last tomato and pretending like this is all very normal. Like this is how their relationship has always been. David lets it happen, lets the time stretch out, lets himself enjoy being here with Matteo. It’s strange, but it’s good, a mixture of delight in the connection they seem to be forging out of shared laughter and food, and fear that it can all fall away from underneath them if they push it too far. There’s a strange exhilaration to the moment, as if the fact that it _could_ all come crashing down at a moment’s notice makes it all the more precious.

Eventually, though, the food is all gone and they have to break the peace they’ve built. The plates have been washed and put away, all the leftover cooking products are stowed back in the fridge or in a cupboard and every surface has been wiped down. As he wrings out the cloth he’s been using to tidy up, Matteo sighs and glances over at David, looking rueful.

“Guess it’s time then,” he says, the resignation in his voice enough to make David laugh.

“It’s not that bad,'' David says. “A little backbone, a little time and it’ll all be done soon.”

“Easy for you to say,” Matteo says, throwing the cloth down and moving to grab his jacket, beanie, scarf and gloves from the hooks near the door. “You were a sports nerd at school.”

The word stabs into David and he winces. School. The mention of it brings up all sorts of things that he’d rather leave buried for now. There’s so much they really should discuss, but the fear is that whatever peace they have here and now will be destroyed if they address all of that. So talking about school feels difficult. Fraught. Dangerous.

“It’s shoveling snow; how hard can that be?” David protests, to deflect away from topics that are just going to stress him out. “Even a weed-hound like you can surely do that!”

The look Matteo gives him is chilled again, his lips pulled into a frown and his eyes suddenly guarded. He mutters something that David doesn’t catch and sits on a nearby bench to pull on his boots. Despite the heat from the fire, David shivers. He’s not entirely sure what he’s said wrong, but he’s learning now not to push, learning that he should wait til things die down and feelings aren’t so raw before he says anything. So he sits too, stamping his own feet into boots that feel a little too tight before he stands to grab a shovel from a bucket by the door and pulls it open.

The world outside is a blinding white, the sun bouncing light off the drifts and reflecting it back into his eyes in a glare that’s almost painful. It’s cold, too, much colder than he’d been expecting, or maybe it’s just the contrast with the fire at his back. David sighs, turns to look back at Matteo. His eyes are shuttered and his mouth grim as he pulls a shovel out of the bucket and moves up next to David to examine what they’re dealing with. 

There’s a small snow drift by the door, and some has fallen inwards as the door was opened. It’s already melting on the stone entrance way, small rivulets making a wet pattern through the rough-hewn tiles, but there’s still roughly half a foot stacked up. David steps gingerly over the top of the pile and trudges a few steps out into the yard. He turns to look around him. It’s not too bad, from what he can gather. The road out front has been roughly ploughed, and there’s only a few feet between the cabin and the verge. The pile by the house is the worst of it, the rest tapering off to only an inch or two by the time it hits the road, and David thinks they should probably be able to deal with it fairly quickly. 

They set to work, and soon settle into a routine. David will take a scoop and throw it over to one side, then Matteo will do the same on the other. They get into a rhythm, bodies flowing into a dance that feels natural, as if working in tune with each other is something they’ve been doing their entire lives. The shoveling is not easy, and his arms are soon burning, but David actually blesses the work. The grim expression has dropped off Matteo’s face, and his cheeks are rosy with the effort, his scarlet scarf highlighting the crimson spots and bringing out the blue of his eyes when he looks up to see why David has paused.

“Too hard keeping up with a weed-hound, huh?” he asks, leaning on his shovel and grinning. His voice is coming in harsh pants and it’s obvious that he’s struggling, but there’s a glint in his eyes. Whatever funk had overcome him earlier seems to have dissipated and he’s back to the Matteo who had cooked breakfast this morning. The small, fragile peace they’ve forged is back, it seems.

“You wish,” David says, grabbing a scoop and throwing it in Matteo’s direction. It hits him square in the chest and the surprised O his mouth makes as it slides off his jacket makes David laugh. Too late, he realises that wasn’t the wisest idea as a well-aimed wad of snow whacks him in the mouth and he sputters in indignation as he spits out the flakes that had got inside.

He’s about to throw more back, hoping maybe to capitalise on the levity of the moment, when Matteo just grins at him, and starts shoveling the path again, with a determined air. He’s clearly intent on his work now, ensuring that whatever that was is over now. It was a small moment, nothing like the laughter of last night, but it felt real. Like they were just two guys who had some snow and could just throw it at each other. For that second there was no baggage. But now, Matteo’s serious again, back into work mode and the moment is lost.

David examines Matteo in between each of his own shovels of snow, watching as he works steadily. His hair flops out from under his beanie and his lips are pursed again in concentration. He’s lost so much of the boyish shape to his face that he had back when they were at school, emphasising the lines of his jaw and the fullness of his lips, and David can’t keep his eyes off him. 

He wants to just say fuck it and talk about what happened between them, about that one conversation and all the gaping chasms that opened up after it. But he can’t. The moments they’ve shared over the last few hours are still so delicate that he fears cracking them with anything of substantial weight. Matteo’s determined distance now holds David back too. Maybe he’s right, maybe they should just live with whatever is happening now and not rock any boats while things are still so delicate.

He already made one misstep this morning, but it seems they’ve recovered from it. There’s no way David is going to chance another. It’s better and easier to pretend they’re just two friends having a good time at a cabin together, being goofy and messing around. So instead of saying anything real, David settles for a grin as he pushes Matteo's arm to catch his attention.

“Race you?” he says, nodding back down the path to the road. “First one finished gets all the cremys.”

Matteo’s eyes light up and he nods. They speed up, shovels of snow not landing quite as neatly as they had been, the rhythm now messed up by the competition. By the time they’ve made it to the road, the path is mostly clear, they’re both breathless and laughing and Matteo is holding his shovel over his head and crowing in delight.

“I guess jocks just can’t deal with real physical activity,” he says, sticking his tongue out and David can’t help but laugh. Matteo looks shattered, he’s gasping for breath and is clearly only just able to stand upright, so his boast is a little ironic.

“Not at all,” David says as he walks backwards in the direction of the cabin’s door. “This way I get inside before you and I can steal all the fire’s warmth.”

He turns and scampers back to the house, feet sliding a little on the wet and frosty pathway but he keeps himself upright and propels forward. Matteo curses behind him and David can hear the shuffles as he too slides his way back up the path. David gets inside the room, and turns to watch as Matteo just makes it to the door and grabs onto the frame to avoid falling onto his knees.

David grins out at him, and tilts his head. “What was that about physical prowess?”

“Fuck you,” Matteo growls. “At least I get all the cremys for my trouble.”

David raises his brows in query. “Not quite all,” he says. “You promised me a cookie.”

Matteo rolls his eyes as he pushes past David and makes his way out to the bedrooms. “You’re lucky I’m kind,” he says over his shoulder. “I’m not sure you deserve anything after that, but I’ll give you one anyway.”

He disappears around the door as he says it, and David is glad. He needs a moment to gather his thoughts. This morning has been fun, more fun than he’d expected he could have with Matteo, and it’s a little scary. Confronting. He’s walking a line here, and every time he lets himself relax there’s a fear that it could all crash around him. But one thing he’s learning is that Matteo really isn’t what David has always thought; he’s a lot more like the person he’d met all that time ago. It’s starting to feel like everything since that one conversation has been a mask, or worse had been invented by David’s own fears and worries, and that maybe the Matteo he’d known back then was closer to reality than the one who’s been living inside David’s head ever since.

And that thought is really difficult right now, facing up to his own past assumptions. It’s starting to look like David is going to have to reassess his thoughts, reactions and behaviours. But maybe that’s not a bad thing; maybe he and Matteo can become something more like friends for real. And maybe that wouldn’t be such a terrible thing after all.


	4. Chapter 4

It’s been a weird day, filled with an uneasy peace that was almost shattered a couple of times but which seems to have held okay. Matteo starts to let himself breathe a little more freely, not so worried anymore that things might fall apart if he moves wrong. Or looks wrong. Or says something wrong. The strained truce between them has been stretched at times today but still hasn’t broken, not even when Matteo knows he’s put his foot in it or when he’s felt wrong-footed himself by something David said or did. He thinks it must be some kind of record, a warmth that’s almost friendly lasting more than twelve hours as it has.

He potters at the counter, chopping what he’s been able to scrounge to make something resembling real food. He’d used the tomatoes this morning in a fit of friendliness, attempting to make up somehow for the evening before. The way David had reacted to the stupid vampire picture on his phone was alarming, and after they’d found some small connection it had hit like a bolt. So Matteo had worked hard this morning to paper it over and get past it. It seems like he was successful in deflecting David’s attention away from the picture, at the very least.

He can’t bring himself to change the lock screen, it has become too much a part of his unconscious landscape, and so he’d felt the need to do something else. It seems to have worked. David has been more relaxed all day, shoveling snow, teasing, making it competitive. They’d spent the afternoon stacking wood, and now the fire is roaring properly. Its heat is seeping into every corner of the room and it’s a pleasant weight on Matteo’s back as he works.

“Can I help?” David asks quietly, stepping up next to him. Matteo jumps, slightly, so caught up in his own thoughts that he’d missed David’s re-entry to the room after his shower.

Catching himself, Matteo smiles and nods towards the ham with his chin, his hands too full of food to be of much use. “You could chop that up,” he says. “That’s about the last of what needs to be done.”

He’s making pasta in a creamy sauce. It’s about all he can do with the ‘supplies’ the boys decided to pack, and he turned his nose up at a frozen pizza. If he’s doing pizza, he’s doing it properly, at least considering the weird and wonderful flavours Carlos has chosen. There are _some_ things it just pays to be a food snob about. David had rolled his eyes when Matteo had protested against the idea and left him to it when he went to shower. So here Matteo is, finally managing to get the onion sliced just right and ready to start his sauce once the ham is chopped.

They work quietly for a few minutes, and Matteo marvels at how easy this is. When they each have something to focus on, the tension slides to almost nothing. There’s something so simple about working together to a shared goal, and Matteo lets himself relax into it. They don’t speak, but they don’t have to. There’s no lingering tension as they allow themselves to coexist peaceably and Matteo finds himself smiling, enjoying the momentary calm. 

Knowing there’s no way out, that they’re stuck here at least until the roads can be cleared properly, should by rights make him panic, _has_ made him panic over the last day. Instead, however, he’s at ease. With no way out, he’s not responsible for doing anything to get away from David. He can just be. Just exist. It’s nice to have an excuse to be civil. It’s nice to carve out a peace and have it be stable like this. Matteo wishes they could have done it long ago.

“Fuck,” David says, his voice high pitched and pained. Matteo whips his head around to look at him. There’s a bright red bubble welling up at the tip of David’s finger. He sucks it into his mouth, his eyes wide as he shares a look with Matteo.

“Don’t do that,” Matteo says. “”Here, hold this cloth on it, try to stop the bleeding.”

He hands David a tea towel, thinking absentmindedly that it’s probably ruined now as blood seeps through the pale colour of the cloth as soon as it touches the cut, and that they’ll have to replace it. Then he turns to the small first aid kit he’d noticed in his searches that morning, and grabs out a plaster. By the time he’s turned back, David has the towel wrapped around his finger several times, making it look ludicrously oversized.

“Can I see?” Matteo asks, holding up the bandaid in illustration of why he’s asking. When David nods, he takes his hand and gently unwraps the towel. The blood starts to well again, but slower this time, the seepage not so heavy. It gives Matteo time to get the bandaid ready and carefully line it up on the finger before the blood runs down David's finger. He does have to wipe it away once he’s ready with the bandaid, and David sucks in a breath as he winces from the pain and pulls his finger away.

“Sorry,” Matteo says, squeezing slightly to indicate that he hadn’t meant to hurt David and to draw the hand back so he can get the bandaid on it.

By the time he’s carefully lined it up and made sure it’s secured in place, he looks up to see David’s eyes on him. There’s something in them, warm and fond, that makes him suck in a breath of his own. He realises suddenly that he’s holding David’s fingers, cupping each one tenderly, and he jolts once he notices how right they feel in his own. Matteo folds the hurt finger under the others, pressing them down into a fist. For a second his own fingers linger over David's, warmth flowing into his body from the touch. Matteo blushes, feels the heat building in his cheeks as he drags his eyes away from David's and lets his hand drop. 

“Right,” he says, making sure he doesn’t catch David's eyes again, and feeling flustered as he looks back over at what they’ve been doing. Thankfully, the sauce wasn’t started yet so nothing has burned while he had his little moment with David’s fingers. “We should… uh. Finish this dinner.” His stomach gurgles in response to the words, and that breaks the moment, letting Matteo turn back to the food and finish preparing their meal.

It’s awkward for a few moments, Matteo's heart beating stupidly fast as his mind whirls and he tries to figure out what the hell had just happened, but by the time they’re ready to eat, there’s something resembling easiness again. They eat, mostly silently, but whatever was going on in that moment has dissipated. If Matteo feels a residual heat in his fingertips where he’d held David's hand he’s able to ignore it. Mostly.

They do the dishes together, a strange quietness sitting between them. It’s been such a weird day filled with contradictions and an uneasy peace that Matteo finds that he’s dithering a little, drawing out the time they share here with his hands in the soapy water and David alongside him. It is quiet, but it’s not the strained silence that it has been in the past. The dinner, after the snow shoveling and all the associated fun, has settled something. Something the hand thing wasn’t able to ruin, even while it makes Matteo question a lot of things he’s been feeling.

It’s not often Matteo feels at peace with someone when they’re not talking and just sharing space. The fact that it’s David this time seems so bizarre that he’s not quite even sure this is real. There’s a shimmering, unnerving quality to the air around them. Just like it did when they were in the snow, shoveling in an easy rhythm, Matteo feels like he has a natural sense of how David works. Of how they can work together, settling into those rhythms so easily it feels like they’ve been doing it forever.

After the last year and a half, that feels weird. There’s a quality about this evening that reminds him of that one shining long ago conversation before everything turned to shit in Matteo’s life. The last good conversation they’d had, and after which when he’d emerged from his ‘funk’ it seemed like David hated him. They’d talked that day of hopes and dreams, of what they wanted to achieve in their lives and where they wanted to go. Matteo had even told David how lost he felt, as if he was cast adrift and had no anchor at all. David had seemed to understand.

He glances at David now, watches the way he smiles softly to himself as he wipes the dishes down and carefully stores them away where they belong. He seems lost in his own little world, at an easy peace with himself and the world at large. It tugs at something in Matteo’s chest, something that wanted to connect all those months ago but which was shut down too quickly.

He wonders, not for the first time, why David seemed to pull away so forcefully back then. Why it seemed that every overture ever since has been rebuffed. He appears more relaxed now, more willing to give back something when Matteo reaches out with his tentative tendrils of friendship. So he thinks maybe they could try again, try to push past the barriers that slam into place whenever things get too difficult or uncomfortable. Whenever they get too real.

He sighs as he puts the final fork down on the drainer, pulls the plug from the sink and dries off his hands on the end of David’s tea towel.

“Oi, I’m still using that! You’re making it all wet!”

Matteo laughs and flicks the end back and up so it flies into David's chest. “I don’t think it could get much wetter than it already was,” he says as he turns to the fridge. “How’d you get it so soaked just drying those few dishes?”

There’s an exasperated huff behind him and he buries his own smile behind the fridge door as he grabs a few beers out.

“You’re the one who washed them! They’d dry easier if you didn’t leave a flood on each one,” David protests as Matteo pushes the door closed with his foot and tilts the bottles up in a question. David nods as he wipes the last fork and throws it into the container with the rest of them, then scowls at the tea towel. It’s obvious they have to retire it along with the one they ruined earlier.

“Try through that door,” Matteo says nodding in the direction of the small washing facility he’d discovered while cooking breakfast that morning. There’s a little clothes hamper in there they can use to store dirty cloths before washing everything just before they leave.

By the time David gets back, Matteo is happily ensconced on the couch nearest to the coffee table he’s placed the beers on and in perfect position to enjoy the fire. He has his back against the arm, and his feet are propped up along three of the four cushions. The fire’s heat is warming them nicely after being on the cold timber flooring. He can see David casting a glance between his couch and the small, cramped armchair to one side and the other couch, further from the fire and covered in a cold, unappealing leather. While there’s enough room for David on the other end, he can see the hesitation at the idea of sitting so close to Matteo's feet.

He drops his own feet from the end to lean forward and pick up one of the beers, leaving him sitting upright. It leaves plenty of space for David to sit on the other end if he chooses to. One thing Matteo’s starting to learn about David is that he’s more likely to do what he wants if he doesn’t think you’re making a big deal of accommodating him. It was true with the breakfast, and it’s probably true again now. 

This couch is the best one in the room, and David obviously wants to sit on it too, so Matteo casually slugs a gulp from his beer and leans back on the couch to stretch his feet out to the fire, extending them under the coffee table until they rest a few inches from the edge of the hearth.

“That’s so fucking nice,” he groans, wriggling his toes appreciatively. 

He feels more than sees the way David slumps down onto the other end and extends his own toes towards the warmth.

“My feet are killing me,” David agrees and he grabs his own beer and then leans back into his corner of the couch too. “It’s really nice to be off them finally.”

“Oh, Mr jock can’t play with the big kids when it comes to standing, huh?”

David turns his head to roll his eyes where Matteo can see them. “Asshole. You collapsed so early this afternoon I had to do most of the work.”

Matteo laughs as he remembers the wood stacking David had to do after he did, indeed, stumble while trying to help and had to nurse a bruised ego along with his bruised foot. “You fell for my cunning plan!” he says as he drinks more beer. “It was all a ruse to get you to do all the hard work while I admired your muscles.”

The look he gets this time is close to fond alongside a glance at his much recovered foot. It’s heady and intoxicating, sitting here like this and teasing David. After so many aborted attempts at connecting, it seems like David is finally thawing, his icy standoffish behaviour melting into something softer and more comfortable as surely as the snow had melted into the tiles at the door this morning.

The more they spend time together, the more whatever tension still sitting between them dissipates, the more Matteo wonders why the hell they’ve been at odds for so long. 

“What the fuck happened back at school?” he wonders out loud. 

The beer is buzzing in his veins, giving him the confidence to actually ask the question that’s been sitting on the tip of his tongue since they got here.

“What do you mean?” David asks. When Matteo looks over at him, his fingers are squeezed tight on his bottle and his eyes are focused on the label as if it’s the most important thing David has ever seen in his life.

“I dunno,” Matteo says, his body flooding with the cold wash of disappointment since it seems like David isn’t ready to talk about it. He takes another gulp of his beer, hoping that covers his face enough to hide any emotions that might be showing. “It doesn’t matter anyway.”

“No,” David says, taking a breath and obviously deliberately forcing himself to relax the grip he has on the bottle. “No. I think we should talk about it. It’s… it comes between us a lot.”

Sucking in a breath, Matteo nods. “Yeah it does,” he agrees.

They sit for a few moments longer like that, David still staring at the bottle’s label as if it might give him some confidence. His fingers pluck at the edges of the label and Matteo can’t help but remember the way they’d felt under his own fingers as he watches the bandaid scrape roughly against the edge of that label. Eventually David sucks in a breath and looks over at Matteo.

“I think maybe I’ve been a bit unfair to you,” he says quietly. “Nursing shit from so long ago.”

“What shit?” Matteo asks, trying to rack his brains for something he might have done that could leave this sort of legacy between them. He’s always known he must have done something, but he’s never been able to figure out what and he’s been too proud to discuss it with Jonas. Not even when he came out to him and they’d talked frankly for the first time in far too long. The thing with David had been too raw and too painful and it had festered for too long by then.

David shrugs, his lips curling into a self-deprecating half smile as his gaze drops back to the label again. “I thought you were an asshole.”

Matteo can feel his forehead creasing as he tries to process that. “I mean, I kind of was,” he says as lightly as he can, but he can hear the wobble in his voice. He knows this, knows David hasn’t liked him much, but hearing it out loud is more painful than he’d expected. “I did some stuff to Sara that wasn’t really fair. But I don’t recall doing anything to you.”

David’s mouth curves so he’s genuinely smiling now, and he shakes his head. “It wasn’t so much what you did as what you didn’t do.”

Blinking, Matteo is about to open his mouth to ask for some clarification, when David cuts in again. “Why did you stop talking to me after that one day?” he asks. Matteo doesn’t have to gain clarification on that; he knows exactly which day. The same one that still lives in his own brain as the last perfect moment he’d shared with David.

He has no idea how to go into that, though. How do you tell someone you’re only slowly gaining some sort of trust with that you were heavily depressed and hadn’t been up to talking with anyone? If he doesn’t know already, how can Matteo say anything now?

“I can’t… it’s not too easy to explain,” Matteo says. He can feel his hands shaking and looks at them in surprise. He hadn’t been aware that he’s still this affected by that time, or the memory of it.

“Mmmm,” David says quietly. “It hurt. A lot.”

“I’m sorry,” Matteo says. David looks diminished now, and it’s very clear that however strange this seems to Matteo, that what happened then was as painful for David as it was for him. More than ever, he regrets that they never talked about it before. Maybe if it hadn’t been left to fester for so long things wouldn’t have been so dire when they got here and got stuck together.

“I’m trans,” David says abruptly, his chin tilting up as he looks over at Matteo as if defying him to judge. 

“Yeah,” Matteo says, confused again. “I know. You told everyone last year.”

“Yeah I did,” David says quietly, his gaze back on that damn label again. “The thing is I thought you already knew. Before I said, I mean.”

Matteo shakes his head. “I didn’t. How would I?”

“I thought you worked it out that one day. I thought it was why you didn’t want to talk to me anymore.”

Matteo shakes his head, his whole mind whirling at that idea. “Never,” he says vehemently. “I mean I had no idea about anything back then, but I would have wanted to find out.” 

He squints at David, sees the way his hands are still shaking even as his fingers keep picking steadily at the label on the beer. He’s got one corner loose and has moved to another one, clearly trying to ground himself while they have this conversation.

“Yeah,” David says, his voice a little shaky. “I kind of got that when I saw that stupid picture on your phone.” He laughs, small and bitter. “But you just disappeared so suddenly and when you were there again there was this distance and you were so cold all the time.” He shrugs again, clearly trying to be dismissive, but the pain he’d felt is sitting clear and strong in the rigid tension of his shoulders and the way his fingers have picked up pace in their plucking at the label.

“Fuck.” 

Hot shame floods through Matteo as he hears what David was going through, why he’d been holding himself aloof from Matteo for so long. It all makes a sick sort of sense, and he can see where it might have come from. He has to tell David now, Matteo realises. As ashamed as he’s been of his funks and the way he acted then, Matteo knows this is his only chance to heal this breach. David has a right to know. 

“You left,” Matteo says. “That night. So I thought…” He shrugs, trying to get rid of the discomfort as he does so. “I thought I did something wrong, or you realised how shitty I was after we talked. I wasn’t in a good place and it felt bad when you left so suddenly. I always felt like I wasn’t worth knowing, and when you left after we talked it seemed to… I dunno, to prove that maybe.”

“Shit.” There’s a dawning understanding on David’s face, and he laughs. “We’re a right pair. But then why didn’t you talk to me when I tried later?”

“I was depressed,” Matteo admits, quietly. “It was one of my biggest… funks, I call them funks. And by the time I felt better you were… well, things had got all tense. And I couldn’t shake the idea that you didn’t like the me I’d shown you that day so I kept my distance.”

“And I thought you were judging me for being… well, me. So I kept my distance”

Matteo laughs, bitter at the irony of the whole situation. There’s a small contemplative silence between them for a few moments before David speaks again.

“So basically, what you’re telling me is that we both thought the other was rejecting us?”

Now that David has put it into words, Matteo can see it clearly. That’s exactly how he’d felt. Rejected. David had run away from him after that one day and it had felt like this one person who’d seemed so great had rejected Matteo once he’d exposed the hidden, raw, painful parts of himself. The parts of himself that he never shared because he was ashamed of them. The parts of himself that David had seemed to run away from.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I guess so.”

“We’re fucking idiots.”

That makes Matteo laugh again, more free and genuine this time. It’s not been easy to say any of this stuff, but something festering and nasty has been lanced in Matteo's chest. He takes another swig of his beer and looks over at David. He’s relaxed back into the couch cushions and glances over at Matteo too.

“Here’s to not being idiots anymore,” Matteo says, raising his bottle suggestively in David’s direction. He considers it for a moment and then leans over to clink them together and take his own sip. Matteo mirrors him. It feels like in that moment they make a silent pact not to let that old stuff hamper them anymore.

For the rest of the evening they talk. It’s not the perfect easiness they’d experienced on that one long ago day, but they relax and their curiosity comes out again.

“You didn’t know what you wanted to do,” David says as he eyes Matteo over his third beer. “Back then? Do you know now?”

Matteo smiles. “Not really,” he says. “I don’t mind too much anymore though. I’m happy just working and getting some money while I figure it out.”

“That sounds nice.”

David sounds wistful as he says it, and Matteo wonders what happened to David’s own dreams. 

“Did you end up going to film school?”

“I’m trying,” David says. “Still want it, but it’s not as easy as I once thought.”

Matteo nods. “Yeah I get that. Why isn’t growing up as cool as we thought when we were little?”

“No fucking idea,” David says with a laugh. “I feel lied to.”

They carry on like this, the beers steadily diminishing and their tongues loosening as the evening wears on. By the time it’s getting so late that their eyelids are dropping closed more often than not they’ve worked their way through a significant chunk of the alcohol the boys had supplied and they’re lying almost flat on the couch, heads close to each other so they can speak quietly rather than disturb their peaceful bubble. 

“I’m too tired to move,” Matteo complains as his eyelids slide shut once more.

“It’s too cold to go to bed,” David agrees. 

Matteo squints across at him and sees that his eyes, too, are closed and there’s a small satisfied smile playing on his lips. He looks frankly too gorgeous and Matteo feels a stirring in his chest. Now that he knows David’s reasons for being so standoffish, and now that they’ve drunk so much beer and talked for so many hours, he feels relaxed and calm here with David. The fleeting crush he’d had back then, and repressed once David had left that day and seemed to back away, is back in near full force.

Matteo has to remind himself that however nice this evening has been it’s only been one day and he can’t get too deep into this thing. He knows they’ve both been misled by the way events fell out. He knows it’s not what he’s thought for so long. He also knows he doesn’t know David at all. Not really. He still needs to be careful.

Even so, Matteo can’t bring himself to draw his gaze away. In the soft light of the fire, now that they’ve switched off the overhead light, David’s skin glows warm. His cheeks are rosy and his piercing gleams in the low light. Matteo finds his eyes tracing the lines of his jaw and the way his brows knit together as he fights sleep. It’s not working and Matteo watches as his breathing evens out and his mouth drops slightly open. It’s fascinating, and by the time Matteo thinks half heartedly about moving to his cold bed, it’s too late.

David’s head has slipped and settled onto Matteo's shoulder. It’s too warm, and he’s too sleepy and comfortable to move. He gives in to his body and lets it drag him under, calmed by the reassuring weight of David's head.


	5. Chapter 5

David’s toes are freezing, that’s the first thing he notices when he wakes. He wriggles them in his wooly socks and groans when the movement spreads chills up his legs. His legs, which are  _ not _ freezing, or hadn’t been until he’d moved them. It’s the contrast between their previous pleasant warmth and this new cool that makes him pay more attention to the world around him.

When David realises what’s happened, he stills in the middle of a luxurious stretch. He fell asleep on the couch. On Matteo.

Matteo.

Matteo who is now wrapped around him, his arms tucked solidly at David’s waist and his head nestled into the nape of David’s neck. It’s almost alarming that it had taken this long for David to notice the pleasant weight of Matteo’s body tucked in behind him.

There’s a snuffling sigh against his neck, and Matteo’s arms tighten as his nose presses in closer and his breath stirs the hairs on the back of David’s neck. David’s stomach swoops at the feeling and he tenses even more. As much as he’s been nursing his old crush back into life over these last two days, David is aware that things are still very shaky. This newfound peace and understanding is still too fragile for this sort of morning closeness to be a good idea. Not when Matteo’s thoughts are still impenetrable and David has no idea how he feels about any of this.

David closes his eyes in shamed memory of how badly they misjudged each other back at school. But the problem is that no matter how nice it feels to have the weight of Matteo’s perceived judgement off his back, David doesn’t really know him at all. Last night they talked and cleared the air and the rest of the evening was pleasant. Fun, even. But he can’t let himself fall into the mistake of thinking that means he can give in to all of his feelings. Two days can’t erase the months and months of lost time and stupid chilliness they’ve been soaking in for so long. Two days can’t put them on the sort of footing that allows for much more than a careful friendship.

Matteo’s arms around him, and his body snuggled in so close, feels so right and David wishes he could relax into it. He wishes this all meant things were perfect. He wishes he could turn in those arms and press kisses all over that face. But the pace at which those thoughts are sneaking in is alarming and he can’t allow himself to be swept away in such romantic notions. Not when they haven’t talked about it, not when he has no idea where Matteo's head is on this.

So he carefully extricates himself, peeling Matteo's arms away before sliding out of the embrace. It had felt so nice to be held like that, as if he was being hugged, as if this was the natural way the two of them should be connected. Hugged from behind as if he meant something. Held in those arms like he’s something precious.

He sits at the edge of the couch, and turns to look over his shoulder at Matteo. His eyes are finally open and he’s blinking in soft-eyed sleepy confusion. His hair is messed up, as if someone has run their fingers through it repeatedly through the night. His mouth is tilted into a sloppy casual smile and his hair flops down and into his eyes as he snuggles in on himself as the vestiges of David's body heat dissipate and Matteo obviously tries to chase its warmth. Altogether it’s a soft, pliant look and it does something to David’s resolve.

Matteo looks so gentle, soft and warm and comfortable. David wants to fall back into that embrace and fall asleep again, pretend he never noticed the arms around him or the hugging. Pretend he never felt the whisper of Matteo’s breath over his neck or the warm weight of his knee tucked in behind one of David’s. Unfortunately, Matteo is returning to consciousness, that sleepy-eyed look dissolving into a more firm presence, and the moment is lost.

“Fuck,” Matteo whines, twisting his neck as he sits up and drops his feet to the ground. “My neck hurts. Remind me never to sleep on a couch again.”

This is normal. Natural. Matteo isn’t making a big deal of anything so David relaxes. He laughs. “Remind me never to sleep without blankets. My feet are freezing.”

As if to emphasise the point, or as a way to make this yet another competition, Matteo suddenly kicks his own feet up and presses them against David’s lower back. Ice cold floods through him even through Matteo’s socks and the hoodie David’s wearing. He yelps, and Matteo giggles.

In retaliation, David presses his fingers, which are getting cold now that he’s out of Matteo’s hug, to the sliver of skin that’s showing at Matteo’s waist. He twists away with a shriek of his own and soon they’re wrestling, each trying to gain purchase on the other with their coldest body parts.

Thankfully, neither of them lasts long before they’re shuddering with the cold and they declare a silent, mutual truce. It’s too icy in the room for them to carry on, but at least the lingering worry that he was overthinking everything has gone from David's body. He feels good. Peaceful. Happy, as if a weight has been pulled off his chest. They can be friends, at least.

He quickly cleans out the hearth, and lays the fire with some of the wood they brought in yesterday and carefully coaxes a small flame from the kindling. To warm up a little in the meantime, Matteo turns the heater on at the wall and they share a look. It’s such a contrast to the way they both felt last time he did it that it seems like they’re two different people and an entire lifetime away from that moment.

It’s only been a couple of days.

David shakes himself as he reminds himself of that. He can’t go around letting himself relax too much. There’s still a lot of water under that long ago bridge and a lot of unsaid words that need to come out into the open.

The warmth from the heater seeps into the air, the loud whir of its fans making it seem warmer than it really is. It’s still frigid in the room, but there’s a comfortable hint of heat as the fire licks into being and the heater valiantly pumps against the chill. David holds his hands out to the fire, hoping that it will thaw some of the icy chill from his fingers.

It doesn’t really work, the fire too small and weak as yet to make any headway, and David wonders how long Matteo must have been awake for yesterday in order for the fire to be as hot as it was when David entered the room. He smiles, thinking about the care that must have been taken before Matteo had come to wake David up, the consideration that had gone into that whole moment. It makes him feel warm and happy inside, a swirling dancing thing rising in his belly at the thought.

“Time for some food, I guess,” Matteo says, still twisting his neck in discomfort as he makes his way over to the kitchen and looks back over his shoulder at David. He takes the hint, willingly following so he can help get things ready.

“No tomatoes,” David points out as Matteo grabs a loaf of bread and starts to slice it up. He makes good thick slices, David thinks approvingly as he watches, and it’s clear that he’s very comfortable in a kitchen and has had practice with this sort of thing. He takes a lot of care and pride in his cooking, that much has become obvious over the last couple of days.

“Didn’t feel the need for bribery today,” Matteo replies, smirking over at David who has grabbed some cheese out of the fridge to cut. He can never make the slices evenly sized, so he focuses carefully on getting them as good as possible. It’s the least he can do to try to emulate the care Matteo has taken with the food he’s been serving.

“I always need bribing! Did no-one ever tell you that?” David says, once he’s got the slice he was dealing with carefully cut and set to one side.

Matteo laughs, and nudges David with his shoulder. “Maybe I thought the sheer blessing of my presence would be enough.”

In a funny way, he’s right. That confession last night has healed a lot, and it’s become fun spending time with Matteo. Still. They really should talk about things now that it’s daytime and there’s no alcohol buzzing in their veins and loosening their tongues. Some things need to be said in the cold light of day.

David places the knife he’s been using to one side, and turns to lean back against the counter. He watches Matteo closely while he finishes up with the bread.

“I’m sorry for being so defensive for so long,” David says. “We missed out on being friends for too long because of it.”

Matteo looks up at him from under his lashes. His deft fingers keep slicing the bread in a steady rhythm, but David can tell his attention has wavered. Once he’s cut the final slice through, Matteo sighs, pushes his hair back off his forehead and shrugs.

“I’m the one who should be sorry.”

David shakes his head. “No, you don’t have anything to be sorry for. It was all my own insecurities fucking around with my head.”

“Nah. I could have thought about it. I mean, after you told us everything I could have done some thinking and put some stuff together. By then I wasn’t really having so many funks anymore, so I didn’t really have the excuse.”

“Are you competing on who should be most sorry?”

David tries to lighten the mood, feeling uncomfortable at how quickly they’ve got to this point and not wanting to spoil any progress they’ve been making. It works. Matteo laughs, a surprised bark that sends another buzzing of that dancing happy thing right through David's body. 

“I guess I am,” Matteo says. “Maybe it’s easier when it’s a competition.”

David nods. He understands that. Things have been so weird for so long that making a game of it is simpler than trying to navigate all the complicated issues and barriers that have dogged them. 

They sit at the table to eat, both with their backs to the fire and the heat has built enough that there’s a pleasant warmth in the air and their fingers no longer shake with the cold. They chat about inconsequential things, about school and how stressful Abi was. About their jobs and the expectations of their friends. About how no-one will believe it if they’re suddenly friendly once they meet up again.

Matteo sniggers as they place their used plates into the sink and start washing. “We could pretend to hate each other still,” he says, his eyes bright with the mischievous thought. “I wonder how long it would take for them to notice things have changed.”

“Things have changed?”

Matteo looks David over, his eyes drifting down the length of his body consideringly. “Yeah, they have,” he says. “To be honest I don’t think I could pretend to hate you anyway. Never was much good at that part.”

He says it so casually that it shakes David’s composure. Matteo has found keeping up the chill between them difficult? How much of this whole thing really has been David's prickliness keeping them apart? He thinks back to the way Matteo had offered him the smoke at the train station, and to all the other small moments when Matteo had tried to make a connection. David had even recognised it as a pattern without understanding what he was really saying every time he did it. It becomes a little more clear, and he flushes with shame. 

“I never hated you, either,” David admits. It feels important to offer something back to Matteo. As much as David has held himself aloof as much as he can, it’s not because he’s been indifferent. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“No?” Matteo asks, a sudden vulnerability on his face as they make their way over to the couch by the fire and take their places without question, in the same way they had last night. 

“No. I was hurt and angry about what I thought you’d been thinking, but I never hated you.”

A small smile flickers over the corners of Matteo’s mouth. He sits in silence for a few moments before he turns and looks over at David.

“Why the hell did we do this to each other?”

It’s obvious what he’s talking about, and David stills. That’s the big question really. Why  _ did _ they? He knows what his own issue was, but he also knows he had ample opportunity to accept some of the olive branches that Matteo held out. 

David takes a deep breath and looks over at Matteo. They’ve been skirting this for a while now, their conversation important and dealing with stuff they’ve really needed to discuss. But they keep skittering away from the realest stuff, the most important stuff. Or at least David does.

Matteo looks just about the most beautiful David has ever seen him. His eyes are now fixed on the fire in front of them. The glow that flickers over his face sets it alight, making him seem alive in a way he seldom shows when David is around. His hair gleams blonder in the light, and the pensive way he’s sitting emphasises all the lines and dips of his face. It’s breathtaking.

Part of David wants to just sit here and admire him, wants to pretend that he’s happy with whatever might come of this friendship they’ve forged out of the brittle cold of their seclusion. He could just leave it as it is, as someone he finds attractive, someone he’s newly found a footing with where they can both enjoy spending time together. Where they can just be friends.

The problem, David realises as he watches the shifting thoughts flickering across Matteo’s expressive face as the time lengthens and he doesn't answer the question, is that he’s never really just wanted to be friends. Even back when they’d shared that one special day together, somewhere inside himself David was hoping they could find something more. 

Part of what had hurt David so much while he nursed the idea that Matteo was an asshole was that he’d felt so connected to him, had felt a promise in their interactions. Matteo’s always been attractive but that’s never been the entirety of why David has harboured a crush. It was the loss of the promise Matteo had represented, of that connection David had craved even through his fear, as much as the sting of his actions that had affected the way David approached him.

Matteo shifts, blinking as he sighs and leans back in his seat. He throws his head back against the back of the couch, exposing the long length of his throat. 

David swallows, keeps his eyes on that stretch of fair skin. “I had the biggest crush on you,” he says quietly, finally giving the answer he knows he should have said much, much earlier. Months ago when he’d had the chance. It’s almost under his breath, almost too quiet for Matteo to hear. He’s not even sure if he really  _ wants _ Matteo to hear it and acknowledge it. But he does hear.

Matteo snaps his head around to look at David, his mouth dropping open as he sits up. His eyes are wide, and all pretence at ease is gone. David regrets saying anything. Visions of a newly ruined friendship rise before his eyes and he has to restrain a groan.

But then Matteo’s lips twist in a small, ironic smile and he laughs. “I had such a crush on  _ you,” _ he says. “There’s a reason I kept that stupid vampire picture you sent to the group chat that one time.”

Glancing sideways, David can see the flush of crimson sitting high on Matteo’s cheeks and the very studied way he’s definitely not looking at David. David’s lips twitch as he remembers Matteo’s embarrassment when he’d noticed the picture. There’s a tiny flush of pride when he really takes on board that it had meant something. That the reason Matteo had kept it was that he maybe wasn’t as indifferent as he’d seemed back when everything had gone to hell. It’s more proof, if any was really needed, that Matteo was telling the whole unvarnished truth when he’d rejected so emphatically the idea that he had a problem with David being trans.

It makes him feel a momentary sadness, though. That they haven’t been able to get past this yet. That they wasted so much time when they were both far less indifferent than they’d let the other think.

He opens his mouth to ask if they could maybe start again. To try to erase all the stupidity of the last months and reset back to when they were new to, and fascinated by, each other. There’s a tiny part of his brain which is trying to tell him to be careful and go slow. But he’s not letting himself listen to it; that’s been his problem for far too long now. It feels like time to finally put his tendency to run from things behind him. There  _ was _ something there back then, and Matteo had felt it too. They can surely go slow while still exploring whatever it was; they don’t need to pretend none of that ever happened but they can start fresh. 

“Do you think…” he starts before trailing off, not really sure where he’s going with that idea. Only sure that whatever he can see in Matteo’s eyes, the warmth and tentative happiness he can see shining there, is a sign.  _ Had _ a crush could become  _ has _ a crush, surely. If both of them are willing.

“Do I think?” Matteo prompts, and David is almost sure he’s on the same page, leaning forward, his eyes fixed on David’s with purpose and intent.

The door to the outside world crashes with a thunderous pounding, sending a wave of pure adrenaline right through him. David jolts, his heart thumping. His gaze is torn from Matteo's towards the door. The moment is so surely ruined it’s almost like it never happened at all. David groans when he realises what must have happened and who must be here.

“Oi, fuckers! Open up! We’re freezing our balls off out here.” 

Carlos’s cheerful voice is distant and tinny through the closed door but still entirely recognisable. The boys have, indeed, finally made their way to the cabin now that the snow has been removed from the roads. David’s shocked to find just how disappointed he is that he’s not alone with Matteo any longer. It has taken an alarmingly short time for things to change that thoroughly. And there’s all the frustration of that lost moment.

“Fuck,” Matteo says, as if in an echo of the thought, and David’s attention is drawn right back to him. He looks regretful as he stands and makes his way to the door and pulls it open. Or maybe that’s David’s overactive imagination and he’s projecting his own wishes onto Matteo. He certainly manages a creditable welcoming grin as he spots the boys, and his “eeeyyyyyy,” of pleasure at seeing them seems genuine.

“Finally!” Jonas says from behind a snowboard. He throws it aside and Matteo laughs and draws him into a strong hug. 

“Impatient,” Matteo says laughing as he breaks the hug and fist bumps Carlos. He looks for all the world like someone who is delighted to see all his friends again and who doesn’t regret the moment he’d just lost with David at all. And that’s pretty telling.

“What? Were you too naked to open any sooner? Trying to bang each other into being nice?”

Abdi snickers at his own joke as he pushes past Matteo and barrels into the main room. The other two laugh good naturedly as they too step inside and close the door behind them. 

It’s so weird that a comment that would have been entirely in the realms of fantasy just two days ago, and which he would have laughed along with for its patent ridiculousness, can now hurt David. He might not have wanted to do anything quite so crude as banging, but he was hoping to use their fragile new connection to explore that long-ago ‘what if’ he’s been harbouring. Not that it matters anymore, not considering how happy Matteo is to see the others.

As he turns to watch the boys throw their stuff into the corners of the room, flop down on the various seats and rummage in the fridge, David sighs. He has to reconcile himself to losing this one shining opportunity he’d had. Now it’s a case of trying to have the sort of fun he’d imagined just a few days ago.

Why that suddenly seems so hard is something he’s not really willing to explore.


	6. Chapter 6

It’s ironic really, just how much of an intrusion this feels right now. Two days ago Matteo was desperate for the boys to turn up and break apart the brittle polite chill that was simmering between him and David. It was  _ less _ than two really; that was night, this is morning and that irrelevant thought tries to intrude so Matteo won’t focus on the situation at hand. Two days ago he’d watched David close that door and shut out the world, narrowing it to just the two of them, with a sense of dread. Now, Matteo curses the impulse that led the boys to this door at this moment. Now he has to open it and let the world back into something he wants to keep private and just for the two of them.

He throws the door open, aiming to appear as happy to see them as he normally would, trying hard to make his face behave the way it should, the way it would have two days ago. The things David was saying just before the crash of knuckles on the door had been alluring, filled with promise. There had been a suggestion there that they might be able to regain some of that breathtaking, fluttering hope from school. It had left Matteo's heart thumping and his pulse racing as he’d said, “do I think?” as encouragement for David to continue. There had been hope for where this might possibly lead.

Instead of hope, now there’s Jonas at the door, partially obscured behind a snowboard, and Carlos grinning with his knuckles raised from knocking, Abdi a delighted bouncing ball of excitement behind them. They’re his friends and Matteo loves them, but it’s a challenge to pull his usual smile onto his face and hug them. There’s an acute consciousness of the boy behind him and the conversation they were trying to have. That consciousness sits alongside the memory of the look on David’s face just before Matteo stood to go to the door.

The boys push their way into the room, and suddenly it feels overfull, their energy and boisterous jokes ricocheting off the walls and taking up all the space in the previously cosy and intimate cabin. This is what it’s supposed to be like in the room, designed as it is for larger groups, and yet it feels wrong. Alien. The feeling of intrusion reasserts itself, making Matteo almost resent the teasing and ease the other boys have fallen into.

He falls back onto the couch he’d just deserted, near David but not as close as they’d been just minutes earlier. Matteo flushes as he recalls Abdi’s crude comments as he came into the room. Matteo may not have been thinking of sex, exactly, but the situation was certainly a lot friendlier (maybe even more than friendly, if he’s been reading the signs right) than anyone could ever have predicted before they came here this weekend. 

In the past, these sorts of jokes have been funny, based as they are on the well known chill that exists between Matteo and David. Now though… now it stings. It hurts that everything has changed so thoroughly, and yet no-one knows. Worse, Matteo thinks as he watches David out of the corner of his eye as he tries to keep up with the boys’ banter, no-one  _ can _ know. David’s face has shuttered, his back now turned to Matteo and his laugh ringing out at the banter the boys are throwing around. David has, in fact, closed off again so thoroughly, turned so determinedly against Matteo that it’s clear he doesn’t want the boys to know how different things are right now.

David looks back over his shoulder at Matteo, briefly, and gives him one wry twist of his lips to serve as a smile. It’s an acknowledgement, a recognition of the lost moment. It’s not enough, and Matteo is hard pressed to laugh along when Carlos and Abdi make some stupid comments about girls they think they might have a chance with.

After a few moments, David pushes up from the couch and makes his way through to the kitchen. Matteo tries not to watch him, but it’s hard to keep his eyes away as David’s shoulder tightens with some new tension, and he riffles through the freezer. How did that back become something Matteo wants to look at? When did the idea of David feeling tense become something Matteo would worry about? Everything has tipped so thoroughly out of its orbit that it’s a little dizzying to be confronted with it in this way.

“Yo Luigi,” Jonas says, plopping down onto the couch in the space David has just vacated. Matteo jolts out of his stupor and winces as Jonas’s arm connects with Matteo’s, and he pushes him away with a laugh.

“Jonas,” he responds, tries to give him all of his attention, though it’s hard not to turn and follow David’s progress. Hard not to try to read what he’s feeling about all of this. Matteo firmly drags his eyes away from David and forces himself to focus on Jonas.

“What’s up? You seem a little low?” 

There’s concern in Jonas’s voice, a hint that he’s worried Matteo may have been tipped right back into one of his funks. Probably because of the delicacy of the situation, and a worry that Matteo’s been stuck with David alone for the last few days. Jonas knows how rough that’s always been. There's that irony again. 

Matteo drags as convincing a smile onto his face as he can and shakes his head. “Nah. It’s fine. It’s been… okay. Peaceful.” He realises that sounds strange from someone who would generally want to avoid David at all costs, so he adds, “Bit boring really, hiding in my room.”

Jonas is still examining him with that unnervingly perceptive look he gets sometimes, and it seems like he might be going to press further, so Matteo pulls himself together, sits straighter on the couch and nods at Carlos and Abdi who have joined David in the kitchen and seem to be crowing over the pizzas still in the freezer.

“What about you guys? You got stuck?”

The deflection works and Jonas throws his head with a vibrant burst of laughter. “It was the worst!” he says. “Those two snore, did you know that? And we were stuck in one tiny room together. It’s frankly a wonder that we got here at all without one of us killing the others.”

Matteo forces a laugh. “Sounds about right.” 

He wishes he had a beer. It’s always been easier to hide his real thoughts behind a bottle, or in the soft haze of some weed which unfortunately he also doesn't have, but getting a beer means going over to the kitchen and back into David's orbit. And Matteo can’t really risk that right now. Not with everything so very fragile now that the boys have come along and tilted their new understanding slightly off kilter. Not now that he’s gone back to finding it hard to read David and whatever he’s feeling.

Thankfully, the others soon finally decide on which pizzas they want to heat up and they move to sit around the table with a handful of the beers once they’re in the oven. It’s natural, then, for Matteo to move away from Jonas and his still-calculating gaze and to sit down next to Abdi on one side of the table. It’s definitely only a coincidence that it means he’s about as far from David as he can get.

“I can’t believe those pizzas were still there,” Carlos says happily as he takes a slug of his beer. “I’d have eaten them on the first night.”

“Well Matteo’s a snob,” David says, with a small smile and a nod in his direction. “He wouldn’t let me eat any of them. It had to be ‘real food’ or nothing.”

Matteo rolls his eyes, snorting. “Don’t act like you didn’t like it. My pasta was much better than any frozen pizza.”

Abdi’s eyes go wide as he looks between them, and Matteo realises their mistake almost as soon as David does. They’d usually never be that friendly. He can feel the heat surging into his cheeks and tries to cover by drinking his own beer and keeping his eyes firmly anywhere that isn’t looking at David. He can hear David babbling something in the background about checking on the food, and the scrape of his chair as he pushes it back and stands. Jonas, bless him, covers the awkwardness of the silence that ensues with some banal comment about how fast the snow is melting, and Matteo can take a moment to himself.

By the time Matteo has recovered his composure and thinks his cheeks may have subsided, the conversation has thankfully moved on to bemoaning the fact that they’ll miss any skiing or snowboarding since they have so little time left. The boys seem to have dropped any teasing they may have thought about starting. He breathes a sigh of relief and manages to join in the commiserations until the pizza is ready. After that it’s easy, and they all descend into silence again as the food is devoured.

Matteo carefully avoids David’s eyes. It’s not easy to pretend that things are the way they always have been, and he’s not sure how well he’s managing even with the distance they’re both carefully keeping. This is going to be exhausting, even just for one afternoon and evening. He’s not even sure why they’re doing it, except that it seems to be what David wants.

With Jonas’s keen eyes still on him, Matteo grabs another slice of pizza and focuses on that and on his beer. Ignoring it is the best way to deal with a situation that he has no idea how to navigate, no matter how tiring. And maybe it’s good to press pause for a moment anyway. Maybe it’s not a terrible idea for him and David to revisit whatever was happening once things have cooled down and they’re back in their usual world. 

The cold, white world they’ve been inhabiting is fake, and navigating the real world is much more important. The boys’ intrusion into their little bubble just highlights how isolated they’ve been. Getting back to some form of reality is probably the best thing to do for everyone involved. 

It’s not easy, and Matteo’s not even sure what David wants. From the way he reacted to the mistakenly friendly remarks they made at lunch, it seems like David at least wants to keep things cool, more like they always have been, at least in front of the boys. Which is fine. Matteo understands that. It’s been hard enough navigating their old stupidities alone let alone with the shining spotlight of the boys’ attention on them. But then there’s the slip ups that occur, when one or other of them says or does something that betrays their newfound friendship. They’re small, these slip ups, and the boys mostly don’t notice, but they make dealing with this whole situation very precarious, knowing that the boys could turn unwanted attention to them after any one of them.

It shouldn’t matter, Matteo knows that, and yet he wants to keep the things they’ve said this weekend safe and private. He wants to explore whatever it is, if David does. But he wants it in their own time and on their own terms. He wants to do it without that spotlight glare on their every movement. He wants… well, what he really wants is to be alone with David again, here in their small world where no-one existed and no-one else mattered. But that’s impossible. So the next best thing is to leave it for a while. To fall back into the way things have always been, and to wait this out. It’s not forever.

Abdi pushes his chair back from the table with a groan. “I’m stuffed,” he announces, cradling his belly with one hand. “I need to lie down somewhere and never move again.”

Carlos sniggers. “You promised me a snow fight,” he says, making Abdi groan even harder.

“I can’t,” he mumbles, one hand thrown dramatically over his eyes and a huge pout on his face. “I’m too weak; you go on without me.”

Jonas rolls his eyes. “There’s five of us,” he points out. “Matteo and I can go against Carlos and David, and Abdi can sit somewhere and judge.”

That seems to satisfy everyone, and even Abdi stops groaning. They end up lined up on either side of the path Matteo and David had cleared leading up to the cabin. Abdi is seated in princely fashion on a rickety deck chair they found just outside the door and the others have a roughly even pile of slushy snow between each of the pairs.

Matteo glances over at Jonas and raises his eyebrows. He can’t count the number of times they’ve been in this position, facing off against the other boys. Normally it’s not David opposing him, with a steely and determined look on his face. But it’s a familiar enough game that Matteo relaxes; he can do this. This was an excellent idea to push thoughts of David out of his head. They can go back to acting just like they always have, with each of them messing around with someone else and ignoring each other.

While he’s thinking, Matteo misses the start of the fight and gets hit plumb in the face with a pile of dirty snow. When he looks up, Matteo can see Carlos cheering in the background while David grins at him. Something swoops in his stomach at the sight of that face, eyes sparkling with mirth, cheeks taking on a deep rosy glow, mouth stretched in a wide smile, and an expression so close to fondness that it takes Matteo’s breath away. He gapes for a moment too long and is hit again. 

“Fuck,” he says, spitting out the snow and bending to grab a pile of his own. 

He raises the half-formed ball and looks straight at David, who quickly bends to grab some more of his own. Matteo takes the opportunity to hurl his wad over David's head and right into Carlos’s face where he had clearly been smugly waiting to throw at Matteo once he was unarmed after trying to hit David. He howls and falls back, Jonas backing Matteo up with a well-timed throw of his own which hits Carlos square in his chest.

It all descends into chaos, and Matteo finds himself laughing more than he has in a very long time. He runs around after Jonas, pelts Carlos with snow and occasionally throws something towards David. It’s difficult to pick the right tone here, between not ignoring him entirely and not giving himself away. All Matteo wants to do is spend time with David, but he knows he has to keep his distance. So every time he finds himself falling into something natural and friendly with David, Matteo pivots to send his snow flying towards Carlos instead.

David’s laughter starts out as bright and energetic as everyone else’s but it’s not long before Matteo notices that it’s slipping, his smiles forced and the mirth no longer registering in his eyes. Instead, his eyes flicker whenever they meet Matteo’s, and his smile tightens more. He’s stopped sending those challenging looks with glints of humour and instead he starts casting furtive glances at Matteo, scowling as if something has changed again. Matteo stops for a moment at one particularly pained twist of David’s lips; and quirks his eyebrows in question but David turns away. 

Jonas takes the moment of Matteo’s inattention to pull his jacket back and stuff snow down his collar. Matteo shrieks in outrage.

“What was that for? You’re on my team!”

“Stop getting distracted and letting them win then.”

Matteo scowls. “I’m not distracted!” he yells. “I’m the best at this.”

Abdi speaks up from his perch on the rickety deck chair. “Jonas is right, they’re winning.” He points at Carlos and David. Carlos grins and mimes a victory dance. David's face draws in even further and he sucks in a breath when all eyes turn to him.

“I’m… I think I’ll head in,” he says. There’s something so melancholy about his expression that Matteo steps forward, wanting to ask what the problem is. David flinches back and quickly turns on his heel to move towards the cabin. Stunned, Matteo stops moving and just watches him go. Beside him, Jonas rests a hand on his shoulder and squeezes gently. 

Matteo watches David heading towards the cabin with a dull ache in his chest. This whole thing feels shit, and despite having no idea what’s happening right now, all the eager hope Matteo had been feeling when the boys arrived has been extinguished. Whatever small hope Matteo had nursed for the future is snuffed out as he watches David's retreating back. That didn’t  _ look _ like someone who’s interested in revisiting whatever was happening when they arrive back at home.

A tiny flake of snow drifts down in front of his eyes, dancing in the slight chill breeze as it slows to settle quietly on the ground in front of him. Another follows soon after. Then another, until they're surrounded by a gentle flutter of snowflakes, and the white world starts to close in again. 

Matteo sighs, suddenly not so interested in the snow fight either. He flops down into the snow and throws himself backwards watching the flakes as they gather pace in their race to the ground. He follows the progress of one with his eyes, until the light cuts out and Matteo squints up to see Carlos and Abdi looming over him.

“You okay?” Carlos asks and Matteo attempts a shrug, impossible in his position on the ground.

“Fucking cold,” he mutters, and they laugh.

“Well I think the fight’s done now anyway, so we should head back to the fire,” Abdi says, holding his hand down to help Matteo up. 

He appears to have recovered from his lunch and is far too bouncy for the way Matteo feels right now. He’d rather lie out here and let the white world swallow him up for a while, let himself disappear and not have to worry about anyone or anything. But it’s too cold to philosophise while watching the snow fall, so reluctantly Matteo accepts the hand anyway and struggles to his feet and starts to head toward the cabin. There's something about the snow falling silently around him that makes Matteo want to linger. Still. He's cold and the fire is warm. Its allure draws him in the direction of the small building. 

Jonas stops him with a hand on his arm. “Luigi? You want to help me get some wood?”

Matteo stares at him, confused. He knows there’s plenty of wood because he and David gathered a lot yesterday afternoon, more than enough, but as he opens his mouth to protest, Jonas raises his brows and tilts his head towards the other boys. It seems obvious that Jonas wants to have some sort of discussion just between him and Matteo, and despite the cold and wet seeping through his jacket, Matteo shrugs and nods agreeably.

Together they watch as the others go back inside, forms lost in the white drift of the snowflakes before they get far away, and then Jonas leads the way through some slushy snow to a tree that has an enticing branch hanging low enough and wide enough to sit on. Jonas jumps up and hauls himself over the branch to sit with his legs swinging down. Matteo groans as he realises he’s going to have to climb up there too. With Jonas’s encouragement, he finally manages to clamber up and then slumps down with his back against the trunk.

He expects Jonas to laugh and tease him for his lack of physical prowess, but instead he sits there examining Matteo for a few moments. The falling snow shrouds his face a little, and it’s impossible for Matteo to really make out his features. Even knowing that Jonas probably also can’t really see him, the scrutiny is uncomfortable and Matteo closes his eyes to try to avoid giving anything away. Not that he’s entirely sure what Jonas is looking for.

“You know,” Jonas says eventually, “when I liked Hanna and she wasn’t into me I used to go out and sit on a tree and just fucking yell at the world.”

Matteo lets himself give a small chuckle. “Always so dramatic,” he says. His eyes are still closed and his head leaning back on the trunk. He’s basking in the way the flakes feel on his face, the soft caress as each one bites cold into his cheeks with its gentle fingers. It feels nice.

Jonas laughs too. “Yeah. But you know, it helped to let it out somehow.”

Tensing, Matteo cracks one eye open and looks over at Jonas. His gaze is firm on Matteo, and there’s a smile on his face which is visible even through the snow.  _ He knows, _ Matteo thinks with a flash of anxiety.  _ He knows how I feel. _ He’s not even sure why that feels so vulnerable, but it does. 

He tries to deflect it away, with a short laugh and a, “nah,” but Jonas doesn’t let him drop it.

“You can talk to me, you know that, right?”

Matteo smiles, remembering the long ago conversation when he came out to Jonas and he’d been just about the most supportive person Matteo had found in his life. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

“So…?”

Matteo squints at him, takes in the serious tilt to his head and swallows the teasing retort he’d been about to make. “I don’t know, Jonas. Everything’s a lot more complicated than I thought.”

“It’s not.”

Jonas’s voice is purposeful and strong. Matteo bristles. It’s not like Jonas has any rock solid entry into what Matteo or David is really thinking. He can’t know how complex the whole situation is.

“No, I mean it doesn’t have to be,” Jonas adds, as if he’d followed Matteo's train of thought. “I can tell shit went down while we weren’t here, but that doesn’t need to be complicated. If you don’t let it.”

Matteo shrugs. “I can’t tell what he’s thinking,” he admits. “It’s weird after the last two days.”

Jonas laughs, and Matteo reluctantly joins in. After the last several months it probably does sound weird for him to be saying that not being able to read David is a problem. He shrugs again.

“You need to talk to him,” Jonas says with some sort of finality.

Matteo sighs, wrapping his arms around his legs and drawing them towards his chest. It’s not easy on the branch where he’s perched but it’s an instinctive reaction to something that’s challenging. Scary. 

“We’ve been talking. It… it doesn’t seem to have helped.”

“I think it has.”

When Matteo looks at him, Jonas shrugs and smiles. “You’ve stopped glaring at each other and even seem to enjoy being in each other’s company. That’s pretty big, if you think about it.”

Jonas doesn’t get it, Matteo thinks. Because of course he wasn’t there for the moment that was broken. He didn’t see the look on David's face as it seemed like he was going to offer more than friendship. So of course he doesn’t know how much of a mess everything is right now, with David pulling back and no privacy to sort anything out in Matteo’s head.

There’s a hand on his knee and Matteo looks up. “Look, I know us being here has… I don’t know, has interrupted the flow or whatever.”

Matteo snorts. That’s an understatement. He can’t keep holding it in, he realises. Doesn’t really want to. This is Jonas, and if he can’t talk to him then he has no hope. So he swallows and drops his gaze again. 

“I like him,” he whispers into the snow, half hoping Jonas won’t hear him, but the hand on his knee tightens its grip and Jonas puffs out a small laugh. When Matteo looks up at him, he’s smiling, his approval obvious.

“Okay,” Jonas says, nodding. “What will you do about it?”

That’s the problem. Matteo doesn’t know, and even the relief of admitting it to someone else doesn’t diminish the sting of fear he feels. How can he know what David will do? What if he puts himself on the line and David pulls back again? The memory of his face as he pulled away and turned his back on Matteo flashes into his mind again.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what he thinks. And it’s… complicated.”

“Mmmmm,” Jonas agrees. “You can’t know anything unless you talk to him. But for what it’s worth, complicated or not, I don’t think he’s unreceptive.”

Matteo can’t quite bring himself to ask what that means, because he feels like too much weight might hang on that answer. But Jonas is right; he definitely can’t know anything unless he talks to David. So, terrified or not, he really does need to do something. Waiting until they get home again doesn’t seem wise. Not in light of the sudden shift in David's demeanor, and all the stresses and fears that come with that, not if Matteo wants any chance of actually sleeping tonight. 

If there was ever a time to be brave, this is it. And anyway, David had said he’d had a crush on Matteo and implied there could be something between them in the present too. If Matteo fucks this up now, he could lose all chances of finding out if that’s true. If he’s learned anything from the fiasco that’s been the last few months of pain, it’s that not talking isn’t generally the best course. 

“Jonas, I think I should…” Matteo starts, waving his hand to indicate going inside the cabin, going where David is..

Jonas laughs. “Go, go. See if you can figure your shit out properly.”

Matteo allows himself one irritated glance back over his shoulder as he struggles down from the branch they’ve been perched on, futilely shakes the loose snow off his jacket and plows his way back towards the cabin. It’s not exactly dignified, and he can hear Jonas’s amused bark of laughter behind him as he flails forward, his legs incapable of moving as fast as the rest of his body against the dense pushback of the buildup of snow. He flips Jonas off behind his back and focuses on making his way through the melting snow banks and back to the path he and David had shoveled only a day ago.

The struggle gives Matteo time to think, to settle his thoughts. As impulsive as the idea to go after David was, he knows he needs to think this through. He can’t barrel up to the door and throw himself onto David. They were tentatively working their way to some sort of understanding, and that’s not something Matteo’s going to recapture by doing some sort of grand gesture.

If he knows anything about David, he knows that something quieter, softer and more real is more likely to pay dividends. Quiet moments of truth have characterised their most effective interactions this weekend. So, he thinks, as his feet slog through the slushy, dragging snow, he’d better be quieter, softer, more real. No dramatics, nothing grand and ridiculous. Something true.

How exactly that’s going to look, Matteo isn’t quite sure. He mulls it over as he gets to the door and pushes through it, stamping his boots in a vain attempt to clear them of snow and the wetness that has seeped in around the edges, and shaking the already-melting flakes out of his hair. He huffs in frustration, icy fingers not working to loosen his boot laces so he can get them off, get some dry socks, and stop shaking quite so much with the cold.

He refuses to admit that it might not only be cold he’s shaking from, as he finally gets the boots off and stands up, taking a breath as he looks in the direction of David’s room and ignores the good natured teasing coming from the boys on the couch. 

He can do this. Right?


	7. Chapter 7

The ache that has taken up residence in David’s chest ever since the boys arrived and broke into what had been promising to be a perfect moment, flares up as David runs over the memories of the past hour, as his head goes over pictures of Matteo and Jonas laughing together. There’s always been something about the way they get on that has stabbed at David. He’s never had that, not really. There’s Laura, of course; she’s about as perfect as a sister can be and she almost fills that gap. But when it comes to friendships David’s never been very good at finding that one on one connection.

It has never been all that important in the past, though, when it was Matteo-and-Jonas and Carlos-and-Abdi and David was there too, part of the group and welcomed. It stabbed and stung a bit to be the odd one out, but it had never  _ mattered _ because none of the boys had ever meant this much to him. Not since he’d misjudged Matteo so badly and held himself aloof on purpose because of that.

But now… now David wants Matteo to be picking  _ him. _ He wants to be the one who gets to fight alongside Matteo, he wants to be chosen. He wants that flushed and breathless look to be directed at him, the laughter bubbling so easily out of Matteo to be because of something he’s said or done. It’s unfair and deep inside David knows it’s ridiculous to be thinking this way. Matteo and Jonas have been friends for years, David and Matteo have barely scratched the surface of a friendship. Until this weekend they’ve been distant and aloof for most of the time they’ve known each other. Of course it’s not going to be the same.

That doesn’t stop the sting though. It doesn’t remove the way Matteo has wormed into David's chest and taken up residence as if he’s lived there his entire life. It doesn’t change the way David feels about Matteo now, meaning he’s here, hidden away in his room like he’s trying to emulate the fucked up vampire pictures he’d drawn of himself so long ago. 

A soft knock on his door startles him out of his morose thoughts, and he pulls himself off the bed reluctantly and makes his way to the door. He assumes Carlos or Jonas will be there to say it’s time to think about food again. They’re always hungry and David pulls the door open, ready to mock them for it.

Instead, it’s Matteo. His eyes are wide and there’s something hidden in their depths. Something that looks a little like fear. Which is absurd because what on earth can Matteo have to fear? He’s been so bright and shining all day, moving through their newly changed landscape with an ease that suggests he has everything he wanted. Jonas and the boys here with them and games to play, like they’d always planned for this weekend.

“Can I come in?” Matteo asks after a long moment where they just stare at each other. His voice is wobbly, the fear even clearer as his voice wavers.

Shrugging, David steps back to allow him entry. He’s taken aback by this, and operates by instinct. Normally he might think better of letting Matteo in when he’s been in the fragile mood of the last little while. Normally, he might try to hide away again, running into his shell still his first impulse. Not today though; today his defences are down and he lets Matteo in before he can reconsider.

Matteo perches up against the window, leaning on the sill and examining David with an intensity that’s close to intimidating. For his own part, David hovers by the door, made awkward by the scrutiny and the lengthening silence.

“You wanted something?” David asks when the silence goes on for so long that it becomes unbearable.

Matteo’s lips twist, whether from amusement or distaste it’s hard to tell, and David swallows at the anxiety the last thought curls into his body. The idea that Matteo might find him distasteful again hurts in a way that would have made him laugh last week. But that desire to be chosen lingers, and David can’t help but feel the twin pulls of hope and fear.

“I… uh. I was talking to Jonas,” Matteo says, his voice barely a whisper as his eyes finally drop away from their intense examination of David. 

“Okay,” David nods, fighting off a new stab of jealousy at the mention of Jonas. Matteo must be here for a reason, and letting those thoughts out isn’t likely to help this situation. All David can do is wait and be patient. He knows Matteo’s not great at just blurting out his truths, that’s something that’s become obvious over the last few days. He tends to warm up to his points, finding a gentle way through whatever is bothering him. So David sits down on the bed and lets Matteo talk at his own pace.

It’s something like torture. Matteo’s biting his lip and staring at the floor, hands twisting in front of him as he takes his time figuring out what else he wants to say. It seems to take an eternity before he suddenly looks up, straight at David, and takes a breath.

“You were saying something before,” he says. “Before the boys interrupted. I just… I wanted to know what that was.”

His head is tilted in a way that’s clearly intended to exude confidence and security, but there’s nothing easy about his body language and it’s obvious to David that this is important to him, that he’s nervous about being here and saying this thing. Which, of course, makes his own heart race. He can still remember the way it felt in that moment when he’d asked, ‘do you think…?’ and Matteo had been about to respond. The fluttery hopeful feeling he’d had, the idea that they were teetering on the edge of something, is back. The air is filled with the same promise again.

David nods, feels the smile forcing its way up onto his face. This isn’t easy, opening up when it’s not a natural progression of a developing conversation but rather is a blunt question requiring a direct answer. But if Matteo can be brave enough to come here and ask that question, then David can be brave enough to meet him halfway.

“I… it was… I wanted to see if maybe you wanted to see if we could start something,” David admits, hearing the shakiness of his voice. 

His heart is beating a thunderous, pounding rhythm, and the blood is roaring so loudly in his ears that he can’t really hear anything. So there’s no way for him to tell if Matteo says anything in return. What he can tell, though, is the smile that blooms over Matteo's face, and the relief that floods it.

“Okay,” Matteo says after a long pause that’s agonising. “That’s good.”

David laughs and stands up. They’re altogether too far apart and he needs to rectify that. “Just good?” he asks once he gets closer to Matteo.

Sucking in a breath and blinking as if he’s only just become aware of David’s presence, Matteo looks into his eyes and grins. “Yeah,” he says. “Good.”

“You think you might want to try something?”

Tilting his head, with a small, happy smile on his face, Matteo raises his brow. “Try something? Like… a game of poker? Cross country skiing? Like that?”

“Ass,” David says, but his heart is lighter. There’s no way Matteo would be teasing him if he wasn’t on the same page. That’s another thing he’s learned about him this weekend.

He reaches out a hand to run his fingers along Matteo’s cheek and watches in fascination the way his lips drop open and his eyes suddenly turn dark and serious. Those lips look soft and inviting, glistening a little in the mellow light from the overhead bulb. David can’t resist them; his fingers slip behind Matteo’s head and draw him closer, letting his own lips skim over the ones he’s just been admiring.

It’s brief, this kiss, but the breath Matteo lets out once they part reflects the same sense of lightness that’s flooding David’s body. Matteo looks dazed when David pulls back far enough to look at him properly and it’s so attractive he has to dive in again, this time with more intent. Matteo’s hands somehow end up in David’s hair and running along the shell of his ear, and the way they feel sends cascades of shivers right through his entire body.

They separate eventually, about when David feels like he’s going to combust from all the strange happiness that’s bubbling up. He’d been feeling so bad when he’d come in here after the snow fight, feeling so shut out and unwanted, and here he is now just about the happiest he can ever remember being. He tugs on Matteo's hands and draws him towards the bed. They settle against the headboard, Matteo pressed up close to David’s body and his fingers tangled in David’s.

He still looks pensive, though, as if there’s still something on his mind, so David tucks some of his hair back behind his ear, drawing his eyes towards himself, and asks, “You okay?”

Matteo nods, leans his head back against the head of the bed and turns to smile at David. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m just… it feels quite fast, you know?”

“Mmmm yeah,” David agrees. He gets this, it’s what he’s been wrestling with for the last day or so. It makes it all a bit easier knowing Matteo thinks the same thing, that this is another thing they’re on the same page with. He brings Matteo's fingers up to his lips, presses a small kiss to the tips, and smiles. “We can take our time, though,” he adds. “We have quite a bit of time to make up, and stuff we should talk about.” Matteo nods, a small smile on his face, and David can’t resist pressing a kiss to his lips again. 

“We can do that with added kissing, though.” David says it earnestly, as if it’s a very serious comment, his voice as grave as he can make it, but Matteo sees through it and his laugh rings out, bright and glittery in the stillness of the room around them. He moves so he can plop himself down onto David’s lap.

“Added kissing sounds good,” he says, leaning down so he can hover his lips over David’s. His fingers are clasped lightly around David's upper arms, leaving heated trails as they move with his body as he leans down. David shivers in anticipation as Matteo's lips brush over his own again.

“Guys?” Carlos’s voice comes through the door, along with a light clatter of knuckles. “No offence but you’ve been in there for a while and we need to know you didn’t kill each other.” He snickers, and David can clearly hear the other boys’ giggles muffled through the wood as well. “Just… knock once to let us know you’re alive.”

Matteo groans, his head dropping to David’s shoulder, forehead pressed against his heated skin and his fingers tighten on David’s arms as if to hold him there for a moment longer. His breath is stuttered and warm on David’s neck, and he shivers again. His own hands squeeze reassurance into Matteo’s skin, warm where his sweater has slipped up to let David’s hands in underneath. Matteo sighs, whispering something David doesn’t quite catch.

“Guys?” Abdi’s voice this time. “We’re serious.”

Matteo seems to realise that they can’t stay in this warm little bubble, and his hands slip off David’s arms to drop to the bed. He climbs off, and David reluctantly lets him go, watching the way he moves towards the door with a warm feeling sitting in his chest. David knows they really should be taking this more slowly, wary of everything that’s come out of the last year or so of angst, and yet it feels stupid to waste any more time. They’ve talked, however briefly, they’re on the same page. They get it and they both understand how tenuous this is. What matters is that they  _ can _ talk, and they’ve certainly learned how to do that over the last few days.

“What do you assholes want?” Matteo demands as he pulls the door open and glares at the boys lined up outside. David almost chuckles at the ferocity in his voice. It’s nice to know he wants to spend this time with David as much as David does with him. 

Matteo’s hair is sticking up where David’s fingers have been running through it, and his face is flushed in a way that doesn’t really give him any sort of moral high ground. But the way Carlos and Jonas step back a little suggests that the expression on his face is purposeful and clear.

“Well, like Carlos said,” Abdi says, seemingly unconcerned by Matteo’s scowl, and his face serious in a way that’s almost convincing, “we want to be sure you’re not dead. You’ve been in here for a while...”

“As you can clearly see, we’re definitely not dead,” Matteo growls, obviously unconvinced by Abdi’s attempt at looking sincere. “So maybe you can go away again.”

David laughs at the looks on the boys’ faces; they drop in mirrored ‘o’s as if it’s only just registering with Carlos and Abdi what has been happening in this room. Jonas looks smug, but there’s also a fondness and something that looks almost like relief sitting behind that look. He catches David's eye and nods. David acknowledges it with a slight twist of his lips and a tilt of his head. Jonas smiles.

“Wait… are you…?” Abdi starts, looking between the two of them with a grin blooming on his face. Matteo pushes his hand firmly in his chest and gently moves him backwards out the door.

“Thanks. Goodbye. We’re not dead,” Matteo calls out fake-sweetly as he finally closes the door on the others, blocking out the sight of Carlos and his delighted expression and Abdi’s now only semi-bewildered grin.

He turns, and leans against the door, with his hands tucked in behind his back. The look he gives David is so bemused, filled with something that looks like affection and a delighted wonder at the situation. He looks suddenly shy, as if now that the moment has been broken he’s unsure of what to do, of how to pick it up. David smiles over at him.

“Thank fuck they’re gone,” he says, making Matteo snort.

“Yeah.” He moves back towards David. “Now, where were we?”

He slides back down onto the bed next to David and tilts his head consideringly. The hint about what he wants to do is clear, and David laughs.

“Demanding,” he says, but he belies the statement by holding his arms out in invitation.

Matteo sighs happily and slumps down so he can rest his head on David’s shoulder. David’s arm comes around his shoulder almost without thought, it seems so natural. One of Matteo’s hands comes up to play with the string on David’s hoodie and a burst of happiness that’s almost painful explodes in his heart.

If you’d asked David back at school after the one time they’d genuinely connected if he would ever see himself lying on a bed with Matteo Florenzi tangled up in his arms, David would have scoffed. But under that scorn there would have been a sad, wistful ache. Because this feels like it was inevitable, like they should have been doing this months and months ago. 

He turns his head slightly so his lips can brush the floppy strands of Matteo’s hair. Matteo’s sigh in response makes David smile. It’s funny that he can already tell some things about the way Matteo thinks and feels, and he can feel the satisfaction bleeding through his grip on that hoodie and in the softness of his body against David’s. 

He’s content, David recognises. Matteo already feels like he belongs here, wrapped up in his embrace. Being able to read the happiness in the soft relaxation of Matteo’s body is just a bonus.

“We should probably join the others,” David murmurs into that hair, and Matteo grumbles. He sounds like he’s close to sleep and David smiles again. He feels a sense of wonder that Matteo can just slip into sleep easily when he’s feeling relaxed.

“No,” Matteo mumbles, as if he can read David’s mind. “‘M gonna stay here a bit.”

Laughing, David acquiesces. He can’t deny Matteo this one thing. Not right now, not so soon after he first gets to experience this. So he settles back, draws Matteo in tighter.

“Okay,” he agrees. “We’ll go later.”

Matteo tilts his head up for one last, lazy kiss before he slips into a peaceful doze, and David is left to gaze as much as he likes at the boy in his arms. It’s all so new and so overwhelming, but it’s also peaceful and far more comfortable that it should be. While David usually finds sleeping during the day close to impossible, he feels himself sliding into sleep as well, comforted by the feeling of arms tucked in around him and a warm body nestled so close to his own.

They wake soon enough, when the chill descends with the setting sun, and make their way back out to the boys. Matteo seems a little reluctant, holding himself back almost as if he’s trying to hide behind David. The fierce Matteo of the slamming door has gone and in his place is someone who seems vulnerable and anxious. Recalling some of the things Matteo told him about his ‘funks’ stirs something deeply protective in David, and he reaches behind to take and squeeze Matteo's hand. The squeeze he gets in return lets him know Matteo is with him, and he hears the deep breath he takes as David pushes open the door and steps into the main room.

There’s a chorus of cackles and hoots as all three sets of eyes immediately turn to them and light on their joint hands. Jonas seems amused but relatively calm, but Carlos and Abdi are hollering. They’ve overcome their earlier surprise at what they saw, it seems.

“Oooh, finally gracing us with your presence are you?” Carlos says as he nevertheless moves so they can both flop down onto the couch together. It’s one of the smaller, less comfortable ones set further away from the fire, but David can’t bring himself to care. Despite his clear misgivings about being so open around the boys, Matteo is sitting close to David, one hand tucked possessively behind his hip and one leg pressed tight against David’s thigh. The warmth from that contact is stronger than anything the fire could provide anyway.

Matteo flips Carlos a finger before settling in even closer to David. “Maybe we’d have come out earlier if you didn’t keep interrupting,” he says, earning another hoot from Abdi.

“Interrupting something sexy?” he suggests, wiggling his eyebrows in a parody of suggestiveness.

David laughs. “Not likely with you lot around,” he says, and takes delight in hearing Matteo's cut off snort beside him. “Don’t want to sully your pure virginal eyes.”

As Abdi gasps in affront and Jonas reaches out to offer his hand for a high five, David settles deeper down on the couch, his arm wrapping around Matteo and pulling him in more tightly. This is nice. It’s good. The boys are reacting the way they always would if any of them got together with someone. But it feels different this time, probably because it’s two of them, two of the group. And two of them who haven’t exactly got along the best in the past.

Matteo laughs at David’s words and Abdi’s horrified protestations that he  _ has too _ had heaps of sex, leans into David, then turns and presses a kiss to his hot cheek. Jonas and Carlos are watching closely, with twin expressions of happiness and approval on their faces. But despite the obvious good will, there’s something about the scrutiny of the boys that makes David flush. He’s had relationships before, the boys have seen him with his partners before, and yet there’s something about it being Matteo that changes the effect their attention has. That makes this feel important. 

Whether it’s from their history and the vulnerability and fragility that comes along with that, or whether it’s the fact that Matteo is an integral part of this group and there’s some vulnerability around that too, David isn’t sure. All he knows is that he feels as awkward about the way the boys are staring as he feels delight in being able to  _ be _ with Matteo, publicly, openly and without a need to hide away or pretend.

Thankfully, the scrutiny, and the novelty of Matteo and David sitting so closely together, wears off quickly and the conversation turns to their imminent departure.

“We’ve only been here for a few hours,” Carlos says, his voice sad and his eyes mournful. “That hotel in the middle of nowhere was so shit.”

Jonas laughs. “It was worse for me, you bags filled with snore.”

Carlos fumbles over the edge of the couch he’s on and grabs Jonas into a friendly headlock and ruffles his hair. The howls of outrage that creates are enough to fully remove the attention of the boys away from David and Matteo.

“So we leave tomorrow morning then,” Abdi says, his face mournful as he looks around the group and shakes his head as he watches Jonas and Carlos. His fingers are tightly gripped on his beer and he grimaces as he takes a sip. “Wish we didn’t have to leave. We missed all the fun here.”

Shaking his head, David sniggers. “You didn’t miss all that much fun. Unless you consider shoveling snow and piling wood to be fun.”

“Still better than the snoring,” Jonas says as he sits up having finally managed to push Carlos away. 

“Guess so,” Matteo says, his voice soft and warm. David can feel a slight tension in his body though and he turns to press a kiss to his cheek. It’s still not easy to live under the bright glare of the boys’ attention which is newly turned on them with the gesture, but David is willing to do it to reassure Matteo.

“We’ll be fine back home,” he whispers, quietly enough that only Matteo will hear. “You know that, right? This… it wasn’t just a time out. We can build something.”

His gaze flickers anxiously over Matteo’s face, trying to gauge his reaction. It hasn’t been long since they stopped being so badly at odds for so many stupid reasons, but David feels like he has a feel for what Matteo might be thinking and feeling based on small flickers over his face. Today, he knows he’s right, that Matteo is worried about what may happen when they return to ‘reality’ and this weekend disappears behind them.

But Matteo’s lips curl in a small smile, as if David’s confidence is infectious somehow, as if he soaks in some of David’s certainty. Because that’s the truth; David is certain. He may have had a few qualms over the last day or so, he may still think it’s moved fast, maybe some would even say too fast. But behind it all, David  _ knows. _ This, being together, is where they were always headed anyway. It’s just taken them a little longer to get here than they might both have expected back on that heady day in Matteo’s apartment.

“It wasn’t a time out,” Matteo whispers back in agreement. His voice seems stronger, now. Like he believes that.

Jonas groans, his voice cutting into the moment, and Matteo and David look over at him, startled out of their bubble together. Jonas is watching them, while stretching away from Carlos’s questing hands which are trying to drag him into another headlock, and there’s a smirk on his face.

“I don’t know, guys,” he says, eyes flicking over to Abdi and his fingers batting at Carlos in an attempt to draw his attention to Matteo and David. “Maybe it would have been better if they’d stayed all tense and awkward with each other.” He nods in their direction, making Matteo groan in his own turn. “Then at least they paid attention to the rest of us.”

Matteo snorts, pressing even closer to David’s side. “Fuck you. As if you were any better with Hanna back in the day,” he says, rolling his eyes and making kissing noises.

Jonas shushes him with a motion while Carlos and Abdi cackle in the background. It’s… actually pleasant, David realises. The boys are treating them like any other relationship, and it’s nice. While their words may acknowledge the difficult past he has shared with Matteo, their looks and their actions are pure, chaotic  _ them. _ They just accept this new development as if it’s entirely normal. It feels like that makes it more real in some way. To be accepted by this lot means it’s normal. Natural. 

It seems to add more steel into Matteo as well, and he relaxes even more, the banter swirling around them as they sit wrapped up together as firmly part of this group as any of them. All hints of the past are flushed away into the bottom of empty beer bottles and laughter. 

The evening wears on, and David leans into it as he enjoys the moment. It’s so nice to be here, with a new-found understanding with Matteo, who is growing sleepy in his arms, and with his friends throwing jokes and insults in equal measure. It’s nothing like he imagined could happen when he arrived here, bitterly cold and filled with anxiety about the chill between him and Matteo. But now that he’s here, David can’t imagine a better place to be.

It’s warm and cosy and they’re all reluctant to go to bed; going to bed means acknowledging that they have to leave the next day. So the evening wears on into night and the stock of beers in the fridge dwindles to very little. They talk and laugh, tongues getting looser and bodies more relaxed as the alcohol takes hold of them.

It’s a very bleary-eyed and raucous group that finally fall into bed in the smallest hours of the morning. David has had more fun than he’d expected, he’s consumed more alcohol than he’d expected and he’s felt far more content than he’d ever expected. He marvels again at the difference a few days, and some enforced togetherness, can make. 

The next morning, David wakes with a thumping head and a warm, heavy weight resting on his shoulder. The delight he feels is almost painful as he takes it in, the way he feels with Matteo pressed in so closely next to him. He snuffles, rubbing his nose against David’s skin and sending shivers over his chilled body.

It’s freezing in the small room they decided to sleep in. It was the one Matteo had chosen for his own when they’d first arrived at the cabin on Friday. With the boys arriving they’d needed to consolidate and it took no time at all for Matteo to claim David for his roommate. He’d looked sheepish when David had snorted, and quickly added, “if you don’t mind.” Since David hadn’t minded in the least, they’d ended up snuggled together, reveling in this moment just the two of them before they go home and things really do start getting real. 

So David lets himself enjoy it now, lying here awake in the half light of dawn watching the way Matteo sleeps. His hair is a wild mess, tickling up under David’s chin, and his mouth is propped open. His skin is pale in the soft light coming through the window, making him look young and vulnerable in a way that David has rarely seen him. It makes David feel protective, another thing that makes him laugh when he thinks about it. For far too long he’s been abrasive and distanced, pushing Matteo away and wanting to block him out. That he now wants to hold him close and look after him is probably going to cause Laura no end of mirth, if he ever lets her know about this. 

Matteo stirs eventually and clutches at David as he blinks into wakefulness. He’s a slow waker, David notices with another wave of fondness, fighting against the day and letting out a small mumbling groan. 

“Don’t wanna,” he grumbles, making David laugh.

“Don’t want to what?”

“Everything. Get up. Go home.”

“Mmmm,” David agrees. “It’s been nice here.”

Matteo laughs, perhaps remembering just how frosty and awkward the first day had been. But he nods his agreement anyway, because regardless of all that it  _ has _ been good. The idea that so much could change in just one weekend seemed ridiculous at the start, and yet it seems so natural now that David looks back on it. There’s a painful recognition that if they’d just managed to talk earlier, they could have been in this position months ago.

They get up eventually, reluctant but content, and gather their things. The bags are significantly lighter now that the large amounts of beer and frozen pizza have disappeared. And as they bump around among the other boys, pushing and shoving as they make their way through the door, David imagines that his other baggage has lessened too. He feels lighter, happier and more alive. Laura really would roast him for these thoughts, he thinks fondly, but it’s true. He hadn’t realised quite how much the idea of Matteo’s presumed prejudice had weighed him down until the heaviness of that thought is now gone.

He takes one last look around the room where they’ve spent such an intense time and smiles as he pulls the door behind him and takes Matteo’s hand. There’s still snow piled in slushy mounds dotted around the area out front. But it’s melting, seeping into the ground and disappearing. It’s an apt enough metaphor, David thinks. He and Matteo have warmed up the chill between them. But there are still hidden things, parts they can’t yet know. Not everything is melted yet, but the promise is there and together they can handle it all.


	8. Epilogue

The train is rattling through a sun-soaked landscape, trees red and gold with the coming season and sun low and intense in the sky as evening falls. It is, in fact, getting close to uncomfortably warm in the confines of the carriage, but Matteo can’t bring himself to care about the beads of sweat starting to form in the small of his back. He’s too engrossed in watching his boyfriend. The beams of sunlight streaming through the window light up David’s hair and set amber highlights into the darker brown, making his skin glow with their soft gold fingers. He’s slumped down next to Matteo, his head resting gently on the window as he dozes. Matteo doesn’t blame him. They were up very late the previous night, ostensibly packing for their first planned trip away by themselves, but in reality spending time together just laughing, talking, smoking some weed.

By rights, they shouldn’t have needed to. They are, after all, on their way to a short break away just the two of them. But it’s been too many long days since they were able to spend any quality time together, so as soon as they were in the same place they couldn’t hold back, spending far too many hours lying together watching the stars out the window and talking about everything and nothing while the weed hazed into the air around them. 

After their last trip to the cabin, they’d agreed on that. That when they were able to be together in the same place they’d spend some time just reconnecting, talking about whatever was on their minds. Neither of them wanted a repeat of the long months of misunderstanding that had tarnished the first year and a bit of their acquaintance. It’s become such a comfortable part of their lives together that Matteo can’t imagine trying to get through without it. Which is why after the several days apart there’d been the impulse to do nothing but be with each other.

Matteo smiles softly as David snuffles in his sleep as the train rattles on, tucking his chin down into his collar as if he’s trying to escape from the onslaught of the sun. Matteo’s always admitted just how attractive he finds David, but for too long he’d forced himself to ignore it. David is usually so alive and filled with such vibrancy that Matteo doesn’t often get to just sit and look at him like this. He doesn’t often get to do nothing but admire the strong planes of David’s face and the shape of his mouth, the lean lines of his body and the grace of his hands where they grip the bag he’s holding.

Matteo reaches out and brushes the hair off David’s face, trails his fingers over the line of his jaw and traces the shape of his cheeks. David’s lips curve upwards in his sleep and he leans into Matteo's touch. It’s the small moments like that which make Matteo sure, if he ever still doubts, that what they have is real and it matters. Even in sleep, David is drawn to him in the same way Matteo is drawn to David. It always makes Matteo feel good.

After a moment, Matteo settles back into his own seat and looks out the window over David's head. The late summer is just turning to autumn and leaves are starting to turn and fall from the trees. He watches the progress of one as it valiantly seems to be trying to keep pace with the train, twirling wildly in its haste. Its red-gold hue flutters in memory even after it drops back and another takes its place. They feel joyful, filled with warmth, their colours reflecting back the way Matteo feels.

He remembers the bitter cold of that last train trip, where he spent most of his time desperately trying to sleep to block out David’s chilled and scowling face as the snow fell faster outside, making everything seem even more frosty inside the carriage. How differently it feels now in the mellow sun, Matteo thinks, as his eyes drop back down to look at David with warm affection. He’s looking back this time, and Matteo blushes as if he’s been caught out doing something wrong.

“Hey,” David says, stretching his back as he sits up and leans over to peck Matteo on the lips.

“Hey yourself.”

“It’s too fucking hot,” David complains as he squints in the direction of the setting sun. “Why did we decide to do this again?”

Matteo laughs. “Because you wanted to be romantic and go back to where it all began.”

“I’m rethinking,” David says, turning so his back is against the window and he’s blocking out most of the most intrusive beam of light. “Where it all began was really your old place anyway. We should go back there and recreate the terrible toasties.”

“They weren’t terrible! And besides it’s too late,” Matteo says cheerfully as the train starts to slow, and pulls into the station they’d last seen when there was a painful distance between them on a stormy, snowy night. “We’re here.”

Muttering under his breath, David nonetheless starts gathering his things. They step down onto a familiar platform, and make their way through the familiar building to the outside, complete with the same cracked concrete as last time. Matteo grins down at it with a weird sense of nostalgia.

“You remember that first night?” he asks. “You were so awkward.” He laughs, and adds, “I could smoke some weed and you could glare at me, for old time’s sake.”

David just gives him  _ the look. _ The one Matteo has quickly learned he’d probably kill for. The one that says David thinks he’s being an annoying little shit but that he loves him anyway. The one Matteo knows is kept specially for him, and that makes him feel important. Cherished. Loved for who he is. It’s not often that he feels like he can be entirely himself and be accepted, but David gives him that. It’s just one of the many things Matteo has grown to love about him.

They call an uber like last time, but this time when the headlights sweep around the corner in the gathering dusk no-one is scowling and there’s no awkward silence. The driver cheerfully helps them load up their things into the car and then they’re quickly on their way. This time, David joins in with the friendly conversation rather than staring morosely out the window at the gathering storm and making Matteo so nervous he babbled whatever stupidity came into his head just to stave off the chilled tension between them.

They arrive outside the cabin as darkness draws its curtain over the landscape. It’s still warm, but the unbearable heat of earlier has dissipated into a cooler evening, one of the few blessings of this season. David laughs as he climbs out of the car and farewells the driver. He gives a small salute as he drives off, and Matteo can’t contain the tiny smile that slips onto his face. David has a natural ability to make friends easily with just a few smiles and the way he seems interested in whatever everyone has to say. It’s no wonder the guy has fallen for that charm. Matteo was never able to resist it. It’s one of the reasons why David’s distance back at school was so hard to take.

They step into the familiar main room of the cabin and look around, their gear dropped in a heap at their feet. There’s no chill today, the lingering warmth of the afternoon enough to keep the room comfortable, though darkness is pooling in the corners where the lamps, however valiantly they try, can’t quite penetrate. Very little has changed in the months since they were here. The couch in front of the fire has a different set of cushions now and there are a couple of new appliances on the counter in the kitchen area. Other than that it’s so similar to how Matteo remembers it that he thinks he can almost see the ghosts of their former selves, sitting with an awkward and tense distance between them on the couch.

He sniggers at the memory. Old them were so stubborn and so dumb. David quirks his brows at him and tilts his head in the questioning way he does, but Matteo just shrugs. As tempted as he is to play ‘do you remember?’ he’d rather just spend time with David now, forging new memories and pushing all that old baggage to the background where it belongs.

“We should get this stuff in the fridge,” he says, pushing the overfilled bag by his feet. “Hope it’s all still okay.”

“It’s beer, Matteo. I’m sure it’s fine.”

David’s voice is warm with his affection and Matteo just rolls his eyes and drags the bag towards the fridge.

“At least we don’t have any frozen pizzas this time,” Matteo comments as he opens the door and starts pushing bottles inside. They make a satisfying clink as they line up, nicely filling the expanse of the fridge and making Matteo think that perhaps once again they’d brought a little too much. 

David’s rich, warm laugh rings out and his hands come down to sit on Matteo’s hips. “You’re still such a snob.”

Smiling over his shoulder at David, Matteo shrugs unrepentantly even as his body heats up at the casual intimacy of the touch. “You still love it.”

There’s something in David’s eyes as he squeezes Matteo’s hip that makes Matteo’s chest expand and fill with air. He can’t believe he missed out on this for so long, and his feelings about that threaten to swallow him whole. So he turns his attention to the food they brought now that the beer is safely stowed away.

What they actually brought with them instead of frozen pizza and calorie-filled snacks is a series of dried or canned products which can keep if necessary, and far too much of it. Not that there’s any likelihood that they’ll get snowed in again, but it doesn’t hurt to have more if they need it. That’s quite apart from the possibility that both of them will want to extend the time they spend here longer than just the few days they have agreed on. They have the place booked for a week and time off up their sleeves.

That thought brings a smile to Matteo’s lips as he leans back into David’s touch. He drags two of the beers out and hands one to David who twists the cap off and takes a swig, his face screwing up with disgust.

“Gross,” David says, wiping his mouth with one hand. “That’s warm!”

Matteo laughs and moves out of his embrace to head toward the couch. “I don’t know what you expected. It’s been sitting in the hot train for a while now.”

David pouts, then glares at the bottle in his hand as if it’s betrayed him. “I was looking forward to cold beer.”

“I could get you some ice,” Matteo suggests, knowing exactly how David will react to that. “A few blocks should cool it right down.”

All he gets back from David is a deeply pained groan and a vigorous shake of the head. He doesn’t have to say he hates watered down beer; he’s always been vocal about it, and it’s one of Matteo’s favourite ways to tease him. Instead, David follows Matteo to the couch and flops down next to him.

“I’ll live with warm beer, thanks,” David says as he draws Matteo in closer to him. Matteo is happy to oblige.

They sit, curled together on the largest of the couches, beers in hand, and soak up being able to just  _ be _ like this. Matteo doesn’t even take a sip of the beer, letting it sit opened in his hand while he rests his head back against David and sighs happily.

“You okay?” David asks, brushing his hair back off his forehead and bending so he can kiss the newly exposed skin.

“Mmmm,” Matteo says. “Just a little tired.” He shuffles, a small gentle shift of his body so he can relax fully back against David, who laughs and moves to accommodate him. “Feels nice to be back.”

“Yeah,” David agrees softly. 

There’s a small wistfulness in his voice which makes Matteo squint up at him. He raises his brows in an invitation for David to elaborate on whatever is making him wistful. Smiling, he shrugs back. 

“I just wish it hadn’t taken so long,” he says quietly. “Being here brings it all back.”

Matteo gets that too - he’s often felt the pull of the pain that they’d been so stubborn and so stupid for so long. But he doesn’t want to go into it in much detail; it happened, and there’s not much they can do about it now. All they can do is grasp every opportunity that comes from now on with both hands. So he just reaches up and takes David's hand in his own, sliding their fingers together.

David kisses his forehead again, making Matteo’s lip twitch with an involuntary response to this affection. 

“I used to think you shone in my life,” David says, his voice low and sincere. “It was this painful, stinging thing to see you while I thought you didn’t like who I am, but I’d still do it as much as I could because you shone so brightly. So vibrant and alive.”

Something lodges in Matteo’s chest at the words. Part of him wants to curl away from the compliment, wants to reject it because he’s always shied away from things like this, feeling unworthy of this sort of attention. He wants to say something profound back, wants to explain how important David has always been to him, but he can’t do it. There’s something about the quiet intimacy of this place that makes him a coward, unable to place his inadequate words down where David’s have just been. Which is ironic, considering their last visit and how much Matteo was able to say then. But today, he just screws up his face, in mock distaste.

“Ugh, you’re such a poet,” he complains. “How am I supposed to compete with that?”

“It’s a competition?” There’s laughter in David’s voice, so Matteo knows he’s not upset, that he gets it. Like he always does.

He shrugs. “It’s always a competition here.” He grins up at David. “And I always win.”

“Not this time,” David says, squeezing the fingers in his hand.

“No,” Matteo agrees. “Not this time.”

Secretly, though, he thinks he did win. Having David counts as victory no matter what the stakes. Having him so open and honest makes it all brighter. Trying to explain all that in one gesture, Matteo brings David’s fingers to his lips, kisses them softly.

David tugs on his hand, implying that he should turn around, and Matteo can’t bring himself to resist that plea, not even in jest. He settles on David’s lap, hands wrapped around David’s arms, reveling in the feeling of David’s hands on his own face. Looking down into that beloved face, everything else drops away and Matteo finds he can say something after all.

“You shone for me too.”

David’s face lights up, the molten depths in his eyes brightening and warming. He smiles, a slow-blooming masterpiece which softens his entire face and makes Matteo’s heart race. They’ve been together for months now and yet he is still as affected when he sees David’s love like this as he always was.

He leans in, lips hovering over David's, eyes flickering over his face, trying to soak in every moment, trying to fix this shining David in his memory forever. David’s lips flit up into a wider smile and he draws Matteo closer, lips brushing carefully before he deepens the kiss into something promising.

A sudden booming knock on the door makes Matteo jump, his fingers tightening on David’s arms at the sound. He’s disorientated, pulled so quickly and so thoroughly out of the moment.

“You have  _ got _ to be kidding me,” David says. He slides off the couch, his hands dropping away from Matteo's face as he makes his way over to the door. “This better not be what I think it is.”

Matteo squints at him in confusion as he sits back on the couch, and David laughs. He has his hand on the door handle but is turned to face Matteo. Before he opens the door, he smiles over at Matteo. “If this is the boys I win,” he says.

“Win?”

“Remember when you said there’s no way they can interrupt us again this time? And I said I’m sure they can find a way?” 

Matteo nods. He remembers, of course. That was the whole point of this trip away - to get away from the frankly bizarrely accurate way the boys somehow manage to pinpoint moments when they want to be alone and make those the exact moments they interrupt them. 

“Yeah,” David says, nodding along with Matteo. “We made a bet, remember? If they come you give me all the cookies I know you have stashed in your bag.”

He raises his brows then turns to pull the door open, his best intimidating expression on his face. 

“What the hell do you want?” He demands, and the guy on the other side steps back a little, taken aback by the fierceness with which he’s been greeted. He blinks a few times, watching David warily.

“I have a parcel for you?” he says, pushing a large box forward with his toes and holding out the paperwork for David to sign, standing as far away from him as his outstretched arms allow. “For a Matteo and a David?”

“Yeah, that’s us,” David agrees, blushing as he takes the box once he’s signed that he received it. The guy makes a hasty exit, casting a few looks back over his shoulder as if he’s still concerned that David might try to pursue him and yell at him again.

David shuts the door behind him and looks at Matteo over top of the box. He shrugs. The crimson still sits high on his cheeks, but he seems to shake off the run-in with the delivery guy as quickly as he shuts the door.

“Not the boys then,” Matteo says with a fond smirk.

David shakes his head as he bends to open the package. He pulls out a startling array of stereotypically romantic things. There’s a picnic basket filled with pre-prepared food, some wine, a tablecloth and some candles. Lots of decadent chocolates and several bags of fake rose petals round out the display. By the time it’s laid out on the floor in front of them, David is giggling.

“It is the boys,” he says between laughs. “You owe me some cookies.”

“I don’t,” Matteo says stubbornly. “You can’t know who sent it. It could be Laura.”

David holds up the several boxes of condoms that lined the bottom of the box. “You were saying?”

“Could still be Laura,” Matteo mutters mutinously.

_ “Sweets for you two sweet lovebirds,” _ David reads off a piece of paper he finally digs out from the very bottom of the box.  _ “Took you long enough to stop being idiots. So. Enjoy. Do everything we wouldn’t want to see with our pure virginal eyes.” _

He quirks his eyebrow at Matteo and tilts his head in a challenge. Matteo relents. “Okay fine, you’re probably right. That sounds like Abdi.”

David smirks, holding Matteo’s gaze as he clearly recalls the teasing the boys had done that final day here last time, and the comebacks Matteo had thrown back at them. This is obviously their punishment for that moment, and yet there’s something really lovely about it as well. That the boys had thought ahead and arranged this, acknowledging their connection even while teasing them about how long it has taken them to get to this point.

“I can’t believe they managed to interrupt again!” Matteo says with a groan. “How do they do it with such accuracy?”

David laughs. “I guess it’s probably just that we’re always doing things we don’t want to be interrupted from.”

Matteo smirks at him but doesn’t deny it. They really do enjoy spending their time together, tending to block out everyone around them whenever they’re in the same room. He guesses there’s a reason why it’s so easy to break into special moments: they’re all special. He feels delicate at the realisation. It’s not easy admitting that he’s become so wrapped up in David that everything with him shines. Everything feels more real, more vibrant. Even things like laughing at a box that the boys sent or lying together in a haze of weed.

“The good thing is that we don’t have to break into our supplies for dinner tonight,” David says, smiling gently as he nods towards the basket. He obviously senses Matteo's swirl of thoughts and is kind enough to distract him from them. “There’s enough in there to keep us going for a while.”

“Okay,” Matteo says, a little relieved that he doesn’t have to cook today. He’s feeling a little emotional, his emotions fragile and whirling as the memories crowd in on them and the thought of doing something as mundane as cooking is unappealing. “But no fucking candles.”

“Awww, and here I was looking forward to the romantic candleiit dinner,” David says with what is so obviously a fake pout that Matteo has to lean across the pile of stuff just to kiss the stupid expression off his face. 

“We can be romantic enough without it,” Matteo declares, and takes delight in the way David’s face changes again. The amusement drops away and in its place is a bright, affectionate look. “Just being ourselves is romantic.”

“Yeah,” David agrees, pulling Matteo back into his arms, without worrying about crushing all the ridiculous stuff laid out in front of him. And that, Matteo thinks, is about the most romantic gesture he could make. “Yeah. You and I - that’s all we need.”

Darkness falls around them as they get lost in each other, the wind picks up and in the light from the deck outside the window, Matteo sees a few fluttering red and gold leaves brushing up against the glass. The lingering warmth of the day is reflected in the heat from David’s fingers as they slip in under his shirt. All thoughts of the boys and the previous chill of winter are gone, melted into the brilliant golden glow of the here and now.


End file.
